Go Fore Greens or Gopher Greens

By Rober Ayres

A riotous golf adventure of friendships and misadventures with an unforgettable ninesome cast of characters, sure to bring a smile, who try to get through life without getting injured.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 23, 2009
• ISBN: 9781450014984

Rober Ayres

Robert Ayres resides in El Cajon, CA with his family and with his fun loving bunch of friends where he enjoys playing golf and riding his bicycle through the hills, canyons and dirt trails.

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Copyright © 2009 by Robert Ayres.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2009913570

ISBN:                 Hardcover                         978-1-4500-1497-7

                           Softcover                           978-1-4500-1496-0

                           Ebook                                 978-1-4500-1498-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

References to actual events, places and persons dead or alive, are for the most part fictional and are intended for your reading enjoyment. The author has used his literary license to embellish facts from observed events. I couldn’t make up some of this stuff.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

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Contents

The Driving Range

The Putting Green

The Cast of Characters

Hole 1. Way Out

Hole 2. Median

Hole 3. Jailbreak

Hole 4. Dog Ear

Hole 5. Bet on It

Hole 6. Bagpipes

Hole 7. Alarm Bells

Hole 8. Aces & Eights

Hole 9. Clubhouse Turn

Hole 10. Way In

Hole 11. Splash

Hole 12. The Derby

Hole 13. Boomerang

Hole 14. Lucifer’s Rug

Hole 15. Match Play

Hole 16. Perfection

Hole 17. Homeward Bound

Hole 18. Getting Even

19th Hole: Journey’s End

The Learning/Lesson Tee

The Golf Swing Analyzed and Explained

Acknowledgements

Dedicated To:

All of my family, friends, and associates who make me laugh every day.

The Driving Range

The game is going to tell you the truth. If your game has any weaknesses, the golf course will find it. Golf is not easy for anyone. You can’t inherit a golf game. If you’re good at it, you’ve earned it . . . . Jim Flick¹

This is where it all begins, and most often ends—the driving range, where you play perfectly, but once you step onto the golf course you leave that beautiful swing. You revert to something resembling a cross between a golf swing and a turkey basting stroke. You don’t have a clue as to why the difference. Usually the first words spoken after you top your first tee shot 15 yards, or hit into a water hazard or bunker is, I didn’t miss a shot on the driving range. I can’t figure it out.

Oh, how this game plays with your emotions and how easily you can be influenced by little notions that creep into your mind and your subconscious. No one has ever figured it out successfully, except for those touring pros, and they are so far and few between that they shouldn’t be counted. It’s hapless folk who suffer the enjoyment, and are better off for the experience. This game reaches deep into your soul and rips it out through your heart, but you still, look forward to it.

The practicing should be fun and an adventure, spending more time on the range than on the golf course. But who has that much time, except for those fortunate professionals? So you make a few cursory swings at the range, if at all, then head to the first tee. No wonder the impeding disaster takes place. You have already prepared for it.

The range gives you all sorts of obstacles and challenges to partake. They are right there in front of you, flags, simulated bunkers, uneven ground, for all to use as targets. After all, it is a target game. I recall one of the most famous driving ranges in all of West Los Angeles located at Wilshire and Sepulveda Boulevards, now housing government offices. Constructed in a very large semi-circle, it maximized all available land. Imagine, if you will, a layout shaped something like a boomerang with the place to purchase practice balls at the bottom. Those golfers venturing up the left side for some privacy sure had it to themselves. The lighting for nighttime practice was virtually non-existent at this far end of the range. Anyone on the far right side could not see anything or anyone to the upper left side. The surface of the range was hard packed dirt that made it easy for the caged tractor driver to drive over the balls to collect them.

One particular evening, a lonely soul wanted to practice as far away from anyone as possible so his poor swing could not be made fun of. He, indeed a novice at the game, gradually began hitting balls, each with a little more distance than the previous, until he was ready to bring out the big club—The Driver—to see just how far he could hit the ball. Sure enough, he smacked one squarely, but unfortunately, not in the middle of the clubface. The ball, a line drive sliced toward an unsuspecting soul hitting his shots from the right side of the range. He looked up into the darkness to follow his perfectly executed shot, when suddenly he folded over like a fortune cookie, and dropped to the ground. The line drive ball hit him squarely in the privates. Everyone on the range witnessed this ill-timed event and rushed to the felled victim. Poor fella, he never knew what hit him, and of course, the guy at the other end of the shot was last seen running off into the cover of darkness, with his clubs slung over his back. No one knew the victim since he came there alone, so medical help was summoned. The ambulance arrived and after the medic heard the explanation of the accident, everyone had to be helped to their feet from falling down laughing. This was sure not a laughing matter to the injured party, but he recovered sufficiently in a short time, and needed no further medical attention. He returned to his practice session.

Golfers are indeed a hardy bunch who will play through pain and rain at any time to get in their golf, and for that, their dedication must be admired.

A group of eight golfers ventured to Houston in a hot and humid time of the year. But hey, the golf was affordable, to play the Tour 18 Course. This golf course was a combination of 18 famous holes from courses throughout the United States and gave one an opportunity to experience some of the holes not otherwise available to the general public. Well, one of the group members, Mr. Mandelbaum had a severe case of the—gosh, I really don’t even like to say this word for fear that it is infectious—shanks. He could not shake them off and all of us being concerned for our general safety quickly moved to his left side, picking up all of our clubs and bags, like he had some sort of contagious disease. We banished him to the farthest far right spot on the practice range. When he hit one of those horrible right angle shots, the only thing likely to get hit were some trees and bushes protecting the range for the playing areas. We all survived without incident, but Mr. Mandelbaum has yet to recover from his injured pride.

If you spend some time on the range with a proper warm-up, you will be rewarded with not only improved play but also observe others, and how they practice, or just simply pound balls into the air—or ground, as the case may be, without any thought of what they are doing. A good teaching professional, one who is patient and willing to understand your uniqueness, will be time and money well spent. The real teaching professionals, a dedicated group, are at the foundation of the game, and not always recognized for the contributions they make, not only to the game of golf but to its tradition and history.

The Putting Green

"The most terrifying shot in golf—The Putt"

Greens should not resemble broccoli fields, but here at Hidden Canyon Golf Club some days they sure seem like it, uneven and very rough. Mower blades are never sharp and it is as if the holes/cups are set by a sadist. Why, it’s so fast it’s like trying to stop a bar of soap on an iceberg.

The putting green—like the driving range—is a place to practice that putting stroke that must be trusted and repeated. Over half of your score is likely concentrated in this part of the game. Many bets are won and lost on the putting green, so why not devote an equal amount of time to perfect this part of the game. After all, the best putters are usually the winners of tournaments, and, those friendly games held at your favorite courses.

However, beware of those guys who hang out at the practice putting green and rarely play, for they are truly bandits who think nothing of taking your last dime when you have nothing to your name. If you opt to go to the card room to recover your losses, which is the second mistake, the same bandits who lift all of your cash on the practice green, will lift it again in the card room. Practice, practice and then practice some more, until you can make 100 three foot putts in a row. You may now be ready to play.

The practice green is a wonderful place to experience some of the situations the touring professionals encounter. Pretend you are putting to win a tournament and need to make a fifteen to twenty-foot putt to make the cut to continue to play for the weekend. Don’t make it too easy because if you make it, then you will not get the full effect of what they face to make a living.

—The easiest shot in golf?—the fourth putt . . . . Anonymous

The Cast of Characters

Name/Handle Real Name Occupation Ancestry

Whacko Archibald Formby He’s never disclosed Won’t reveal

The Baumer Ralph Baumann Owns a BMW Dealership German

Free Fall-Tony Anthony Lombardi Insurance Broker Italian

Mack Leopold MacDuff Retired Army Colonel Scottish

Sparky Maxwell Burns Theatrical Agent/Director English

Doc Douglass Chandler Plastic Surgeon Norwegian

The Judge Wallace Plowman Lawyer Jewish

Buzz Clayton Bahlbach Airline Pilot-Retired Lithuanian

Tunes Monty Dinsdale Athlete Dutch

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Whacko The Baumer Free Fall-Tony

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Mack Sparky Doc

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