One of my followers reminded me, just yesterday, of the fun I used to have when I played golf, which I haven’t done for several years now, so I thought I would share a few anecdotes with you, I hope you like them.
The Deer
My friend and I, let’s call him Barry (that’s not his real name, but since I’m using a pen name I should really use an alias for those involved), played regularly at a golf course not far from where we lived; it wasn’t a top-notch place, by any stretch of the imagination – there was an airport just over the road, so it was noisy at times, and the river that ran along the side of one of the holes had a tendency to flood in winter, shutting three of the holes.
There were good points to the course as well, it was reasonably priced, the staff and the other members were all friendly and helpful, and it was a little out in the country, so there were some nice views.
The hole this story takes place at needs a bit of description, so you can picture it in your mind; it’s a double dog-leg 500 yard par 5 with the river on one side and the house belonging to the club’s owner on the other and surrounded by trees – the fairway runs for about 170 yards before narrowing down to about 25 yards, meaning you have to be accurate or you’re in trouble. You can see almost nothing of the fairway beyond where it narrows because it dog-legs to the left behind the trees to run alongside a paddock that has at least one horse in it at all times.
Okay, that’s enough scene-setting, on with the story
Barry and I were playing a round one Saturday and made it to the fifth hole, we walked up to the tee and began getting ready to play the hole; Barry was in the lead so he got to tee off first, he he put his tee down, ball on top of it, and looked around to check the way was clear and work out where the wind was coming from so he could line himself up. That done, he set himself up and got ready.
I was looking down the fairway to see where the ball went, ready to laugh if he found the river, as he often did (I was more likely to find the owner’s garden, or the ditch at the side of the fairway) when, just as Barry began his back-swing, a blur of movement came from behind the trees and raced up the fairway towards up.
We barely had a chance to realise what was approaching us, a deer that was bigger than either of us, when it was upon us. Obviously we crapped ourselves, as you do when a very large animal that has the capacity to hurt you badly bears down on you at speed, and froze, not at all sure what we should do.
Before we could do anything, like dive out of the way, the deer made a sudden turn and gracefully jumped the fence next to us, landing on the riverbank on the other side of it. In no time at all it was gone, like it had never been there.
Although the course was out in the countryside, this was the first and only time I saw a deer there.
As you can imagine, neither one of us played the hole very well, even by our own poor golfing standards, we were too thrown by having nearly been run down by a deer.
Imagine this coming straight for you – scary
ARC Books 