Last Call
Henry, Lawrence
F or years, The United States Golf Association has been running a TV commercial: two young guys sitting with their golf bags on a bench outside a tiny starter's shack, under an overhanging roof. The...
...Sally knows the USGA's commercial as well as I do...
...Moral: Never lift a woman's suitcase without trying out its heft first...
...We had another child...
...My swing collapsed, specifically my backswing as I reacted to the pain of lifting my arms up and to the right...
...And we'll be golfing, my friend:' Just to make her laugh...
...Couple of minutes it'll let up, and we'll be golfing, my friend...
...Finally, by the eighth hole, where I had hit a 220-yard drive with a five wood—not bad for an old guy—we had to give up and started driving back up the cart path toward the clubhouse...
...We played on, with alternate holes featuring alternate weather, and rain returning harder every time...
...All sorts of things...
...Cut to: Absolute downpour...
...Then my transplanted kidney started to fail and I got weak...
...That's when we realized the one thing wrong with the USGA commercial: their golfers are waiting for the rain to stop...
...Where ya goin...
...Hey...
...The rain pours down...
...Couple of minutes, it'll clear right up...
...wails the weather optimist...
...On the way we passed two young guys, drenched, just leaving the sixth green, their bags slung over their shoulders—no carts for them...
...Friend gets up and leaves...
...1...
...We had rain suits, but they didn't do much good...
...Forget it, when neither of us has played in a year...
...Our long-standing Sunday date disappeared too...
...We had found a lovely, nearby course that lets you play unlimited holes for $20 after 4:00 P.M...
...said one of them, a big grin on his face...
...Despite a gentle rain, we had motored off, in high spirits...
...Too long...
...Cut to: It's raining harder...
...The weather was iffy, the way it's been all over the Northeast ever since the snow finally melted...
...This is nothing one golfer asserts...
...Just a passing shower, says the optimist...
...Recently, my wife and I had our first Sunday golfing date in a long time...
...You bet...
...My spreading feet are now a size bigger than they have been in all the years of my earlier life...
...Keep score...
...You want a ride back...
...says the optimist, all happiness again as the rain thunders down...
...We had to poot along slowly, to keep the rain from pounding in on our faces...
...We moved...
...Off to the west, the sky revealed a bright stripe, to the east, a lowering gloom...
...My game has gone to hell over about a four-year period, starting with a torn right rotator cuff...
...Another golfer shows up and asks, You a single...
...We paid the fee, mounted our cart, and started off in what the inimitable Ben Wright would describe for his TV audience as "a nice, soft day...
...No, we're playin...
...Twenty years of prednisone finally took their toll on my tendons...
...on Sundays, just our speed...
...Just a passing shower," I said as we drove to the course...
...we asked...
...Cut to: Weather optimist sitting all alone, dejectedly...
...We needed to learn how to handle a New England course again, with its uphill and downhill and sidehill lies, big breaks on the greens, and deep clover rough, now soaking wet...
Vol. 36 • August 2003 • No. 4
