When my husband and I first married, we weren’t golfers. One day, a good buddy of his asked him if he’d like to golf a round. My husband got hooked and dragged me along with him in his quest to conquer the links.
Ending up buying our own set of clubs, we’d golf with friends and family or on our own, just for fun. With anything, practice makes perfect, but even if one practices, a golf game will seldom be perfected.
Well, unless a guy drops a hole-in-one. In that case, perfection is achieved if only for a brief moment.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I worked at Shamoco Ford in Shawano. A friend of mine worked at Cantwell Clinic, right next door. One day, she asked me if I’d like to join a women’s golf league, meeting Wednesdays after work at Pine Hills in Gresham.
I was reluctant.
“Oh girl. I’m not good at all. I don’t understand golf etiquette or rules or anything.”
I was putting up every excuse under the sun. She wouldn’t have it.
“Nobody is any good. We’re just out there to have fun.”
She convinced me.
Teeing off the first hole with my driver, it dribbled off the tee, rolling less than 15 yards in front of me. Face flushed, I finished that first hole and the next two, scoring double-digits. I was a bundle of nerves. Oh, mercy me, this was going to be torture for everyone.
On hole No. 4, a sweet woman who we were playing against suggested I tee off with a 4 iron.
“It may give you a bit better control,” she advised gently.
I could have hugged her as that tee-off went flying. Hence, I used a 4 iron in the tee boxes for that entire league play. At the end-of-season banquet, I was awarded the most improved trophy because, let’s face it, there was no place left to go but up.
Saying yes to league play gave me more than confidence and which club to use when. I learned rules and etiquette. There’s more to it than meets the eye.
I’ve since, over the years, graduated back to teeing off with my driver. One dear man gave me a tip and the first ball after the tip landed 160 yards out. I teared up with glee.
Golfing for the first nine years of our marriage, we retired the clubs when we stepped into a new role — parenting. We got busy raising our little family. Farming and family took precedence over the allure of an emerald-green golf course.
As our kids grew, they showed an interest in golf. Our eldest even took golf in junior high school. We eventually bought each one their own set and, as they became adults, we dusted off the clubs and have golfed with each of them quite a few times, especially our boys who both live in Wisconsin.
A few years ago, we decided to join a couple’s Thursday Night Scramble League at J&B Clover Green Golf Course in Marion. This 18-hole course is beautiful with new owners improving the course dramatically to enhance play.
There are 36 teams in this league, with play split between the two nines, golfing the nine we’re assigned that night. We all play with a handicap — 90% of the team’s average — so it’s fair all around.
A scramble league is played with both team players hitting their own ball, using the best-hit ball, getting the advantage of two tries. This is like everything we’ve done in our married life — doing things together.
This year, on the first night of league play, we were on the course by ourselves. The team we were scheduled to play couldn’t make it that night.
Starting out, we were terrible, scoring a six on each of the first five holes.
“We’ve got to get it together,” my husband advised me as he approached the tee box on the sixth hole, a par 3 with the green at the top of the hill. When one hits their ball, they can’t visually see it drop.
He sent the ball sailing with his 5 wood. We both watched it until it cruised out of sight. It looked good.
As it dropped, he looked at me in shocked awe.
“I think I heard it hit the pin. I think it went in the hole.”
We were speechless and rushed our way to the top of the hill where he peered into the hole to find the ball nestled there.
Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious. He’d hit a hole-in-one.
Immediately, he called our son.
“Dad, you did it. I haven’t ever even smelled a hole-in-one. Take a picture and put that ball away, don’t play with it.”
Our kids, many friends and the entire clubhouse rejoiced with my husband. It’s noteworthy and exciting, and odds are it won’t happen again.
Hey, but you never know, practice could make perfect.
(“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, New International Version)
Kay Reminger was born and raised on a dairy farm, and she married her high school sweetheart, who happened to farm for a living in Leopolis. Writing for quite a few years, she remains focused on the blessings of living the ups and downs of rural life from a farm wife’s perspective.
