Okay–I’m nothing if not a glutton for punishment!
A couple of days ago, my friend asked me to meet her at the driving range, again, to hit another bucket of balls, again, only this time I was supposed to do it without ending up bruised and battered, again.
Didn’t quite work out that way.
I bought my $4 small bucket of balls (my friend bought her usual big bucket of balls), and I also bought a glass of wine for me and a beer for her. Something to numb my upcoming pain, I hoped.
I practiced my grip, practiced my stance, practiced my swing. I breathed in and breathed out. I used a golf club as an exercise tool and stretched and bent and twisted my body holding the club in my hands. I felt good.
I looked good, too, when I lightly gripped the club, as if I was holding a tiny innocent bird in my hands. I looked good when I bent my knees and stuck my bum out a bit. I looked good right up until the point when I took a swing with the club and realized that I had forgotten to drop a demon ball in front of me. Then I looked silly.
“That was a practice swing,” I said, in case my friend had been watching me slice at thin air. “Now it’s time to hit a ball for real.”
That’s when my trouble began, again.
Golf clubs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I started with a pitching wedge (not sure what that is really for, but my friend said it was a good club to start with), and I hit a few balls…some of them flew a fair distance, some of them landed directly in front of me.
Then I paused for a sip or two of my wine and to rub the knuckles of my left hand. I knew my knuckles were becoming bruised, even though I couldn’t see the black and purple and blue because I was wearing a golf glove (that was, incidentally, missing its finger tips). My friend that lent me the glove explained that it was for women who didn’t want to ruin their manicure by wearing regular golf gloves complete with finger tips. Who knew?
Anyway, after a few minutes I approached my spot again. This time I tried a 5 Iron (not sure what that is really for, but my friend said it was a good club to try next), and I hit a few more balls. Same thing happened–some of them flew a fair distance and some of them stayed close to home, not wanting to actually leave the nest, I think (or in this case, the small bucket).
A few more sips of wine, a few minutes of massaging my right arm, which was now hurting, again, and then back to my spot to try out a 5 Wood (not sure what that is really for, but my friend said it was a good club to use next…).
More whacks at the balls, more breathing in and breathing out, more attempts to ‘relax, let the golf club do the work’, and when I looked down at the remaining balls from my bucket, I realized, with great delight, that I was actually going to hit every single one of those devil balls this time! I did my ‘dance of joy’ and then paused for a few more sips of wine and a few more massaging rubs of my right forearm. By now my arm was really paining, but it was not going to stop me from completing my mission.
I finished off the bucket of balls with the Driver! (I do actually know what that club is for, although some of my results of using it weren’t very ‘Driver-like’…they were more “rolling along the ground like a baseball in a game of ‘flies and grounders’-like”.)
I felt good, though. In fact, I felt great! I took off my finger-tip-less glove and sat on the patio to watch my friend finish hitting her remaining balls.
My arm, which earlier had been paining, was now on fire, and I couldn’t straighten it out, again. It was bent in a 130 degree angle, just as if I was holding a golf club. But I still felt great!
“You’ve created a monster,” I said to my friend as we packed up to head back to our cars. “As soon as this latest bruise on my knuckles heal and as soon as I can straighten my right arm out without grimacing, I want to come back. Again.”
My friend smiled. She knew the sound of someone who had just been bit by the golfing bug.
“And I need to practice putting,” I said. “What’s the point in hitting a ball to the green if I can’t get it to go into the cup?”
“We’ll go to the practice green next week,” my friend said. “It will be fun.”
362.365 - My lucky golf outfit (Photo credit: Jeff the Trojan)
I’m not sure about fun; nothing about this yet has been what I would describe as fun, but I’m now like a dog with a bone…I am not going to give up until I can at least work my way around a nine-hole course once this summer. Grrr….
Did I mention that my knees now hurt, too? Both knees, on both sides of each knee. I wonder if there is such a condition as ‘golfer’s knee’? If not, I may have a new entry to add to Wikipedia and to submit to the Mayo Clinic! Maybe I’ll become famous and will have case-studies written about me!
Maybe I’ll be the first woman to ever complete a nine-hole golf course wearing a full-body cast! Wouldn’t that be something!
FORE!
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