I haven’t told y’all a golfing story for a few days—I have a ton of them—so here’s one about my childhood pal, Barry Patterson. You can read about Barry in a couple of my other posts called, Don’t Do it, Barry, and Go Get The Drew Twins (part 1 and part 2).
We didn’t play a lot of golf, and neither of us was any good at the game, but when we were in high school, Barry could hit the ball off the tee for pretty good distance and accuracy. His dad was a golfer, and Barry probably got some good pointers and instruction from him.
We were playing one afternoon, at a course we frequented in Litchfield Park, and the foursome ahead of us was obviously some Arizona State University football players. They were huge! At the time, me and Barry both weighed in at about 140, soaking wet.
We were on the ninth hole—a par four or five—and the “big boys” had hit their drives and were walking down the middle of the fairway, about 250, or so, yards from us. Barry placed his ball on a tee, took a warm-up swing then prepared to hit his drive.
“Barry, wait!” I said. “Those guys are still, too, close.”
“Oh, bull,” Barry said, not even looking up from the ball he was concentrating on. “I can’t hit it that far.”
“Yes you can!” I said. He was making me nervous at this point. “Don’t do it, Patterson!”
He ignored me, and before I could make another plea, he hit the ball. Unfortunately, it was probably the best drive he’d ever hit in his life.
Even more unfortunate, is that it went right over the shoulder of one of the behemoths strolling down the fairway. The guy barely flinched, kept right on walking, and then when he came to where Barry’s ball had come to a rest, he dropped his golf bag, turned, and stared in our direction.
Barry was still standing on the tee-box, looking with rather wide and frightened eyes at the big guy standing over his golf ball. The guy bent down and got a club from his bag—it was an iron—lined up then hit Barry’s ball over our heads. (We figured it had to be a three iron.) But whatever it was… Holy crap!
Barry started complaining about the guy hitting his ball, and I said, “Have you lost your mind?”
I hit my drive, while Barry went and got his ball—it was incredible how far that giant had hit it with an iron–and we decided Barry could just drop his ball in the approximate area where it had landed, and hit from there.
He grumbled all the way down the fairway, and I told him he was completely nuts, and we’d be lucky if those brutes didn’t pulverize us when we got to the clubhouse. He finally realized the gravity of the situation, and then the direst of the consequences caused by his foolish action hit him.
“Oh, no!” he said, “Now we won’t be able to stop at the clubhouse for a hot dog!”
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Sherry said
Great story!