Hackers

Chapter 1

It is often said that golf is like life: you have to take the good with the bad. Sometimes you get a lucky bounce off of a tree on a bad shot and sometimes your ball finds the one divot in the middle of the fairway. But none of that explains the sadistic bastard who put a 459 yard dogleg left par 4 with OB on the left and trees on the right as the first hole on a muni course - third hardest hole on the course. Yeah, it gets harder from here.

I guess golf is like life. You survive the tough first hole, then there are only a couple of harder holes after that. For me, two of the toughest holes so far have been getting through adolescence and finding the right person to marry. One and a half out of three isn't bad. I got through adolescence age-wise. However, I'm a grown up obsessed with a game; not sure I got all the way through.

As for the third, we'll visit that another time. I'm giving myself a gimmie on it in the meanwhile.

Sure those are the breaks in golf, but was the designer really expecting us weekend hackers to walk up to the first tee and pipe a 260 drawing drive and then land a 200 yard second shot on a postage stamp of a green? Did I mention it's also uphill and usually into the wind?

Well, maybe nobody except for Dick. His real name is Joe, but we all jokingly call him Dick because we've never seen him warm-up, much less practice. He barely shows up on time and usually hits 3 gorgeous shots to birdie that first hole while still changing into his golf clothes. We mere mortals are envious. We also think Joe probably could be a PGA pro, but that would mean practice, keep to a schedule, and act like an adult in general. From what we've seen, that is way beyond him. In fact, here he comes now in his underwear as we are teeing off on the first tee.

You have to hand it to him though, he has never missed a tee time in the years we played together. While he is rarely here when we are called to the tee, but we have never left the first tee without him. It's all perfect timing according to him as he finally finish changing after killing another drive off the second tee. Oh yeah, by the way, he's usually hung over too and continues to enjoy his beverages during the round. If golf is like life, Joe is Mozart. We feel blessed just to be in his presence to witness his greatness. Everything just works out for him on the golf course with the greatest of ease.

Me, I'm the grinder who books the tee times, shows up an hour earlier to hit balls to warm-up, and keeps everyone's score during the round. And for all my practice and preparation, I eked out a bogie on that first hole: sliced the drive into the right trees, punched it out to about 150 yards with a 3 wood to keep it below the trees (quite proud of that shot), and hit a 6 iron just short right of the green. Chipped it to 7 feet and sank a left to right downhiller for an ugly bogie. If that putt didn't go in the hole, the ball would have ran by at least 5 feet. Saved a train wreck to start the round, so I was feeling pretty good about the score. But, I did not hit one solid shot and now I'm not sure how much more left I have to aim so my next tee shot wouldn't go into the right trees again.

See, golf is like life, just because you're done with a hole, doesn't mean it's done with you.

In the other cart are the Martinez's, Jose and his father Jorge. They both double bogied the first hole. Anyone can see that they love the game, each other, and life. Regardless of their scores, they always have a good time and smiles on their faces. You can't help but be happy around them.

Growing up playing baseball, Jose has tremendous power and swung out of his shoes trying to cut the dogleg. I never saw him again until the first green as he went way right. I think he flew over the trees and ended up on the adjacent fairway. He probably had to wait for people on that hole before he hit his second. I'm sure he'll tell us about it before too long, something like: "Fairway, just like my first tee shot."