Near Death on the 12th Hole

I am going to play golf today. I will be playing with someone whose golfing skills are FAR superior to mine. While I will be playing ping pong with the windows of the surrounding homes, he will be enjoying the sound of a soft "plomb" as his ball sinks into the hole like a pro. Seriously, the man has a self-portrait painted of himself mid-swing in his giant and gorgeous home that, you guessed it, overlooks the golf course of a country club. He is going to wipe up the course with me. Alas, at least I will have him beat in making a baboon of myself.

I have not been golfing in a while, and the last time I did I nearly died. That’s right, I was almost murdered on the golf course... by my best friend no less.

The man that almost killed me while playing golf goes by the name Joey McFarland: alius.... "Joey" or sometimes “Liquid”. Anyway, the day I went golfing with him was the first time I had met the man and we hit it off immediately. There are very few times in life after 12 years of age when you meet someone who becomes your best friend within moments, and that was the way it happened with Joey and myself. You remember what that was like right? You just moved somewhere and some kid shows up in your yard, and within 2 minutes you are deep in a fantastic game you both invented out of thin air involving a can, a bat and a goal line. Anywho, that fantastic game for us was golf.

I should have known 3 holes into the course that this man was dangerous. By the time we had hit the 4th hole he had already set off a car alarm and killed 3 small bass in the golf course pond. If his dangerous aim did not cue me in to my impending doom then his cart driving should have. My friend Joey is a charismatic and talkative fellow, and the man likes to smoke. He was talking a blue streak while driving the cart at its maximum capacity, ripping his way down the trail through some evergreen trees with his cigarette hand just dangling out the side of the cart. So as he was talking away like a tape player on fast forward using circular breathing to avoid breaths, I noticed that one of the limbs of the oncoming tree was going to collide with his dangling smoking hand within the second. Being the ornery person I am, I remained quiet. The evergreen branch then swiped his hand and appeared to remove the cigarette.

After a brief bewildered pause, Joey said, (imagine Kramer if you need a visual): "Hey! That tree just stole my cigarette!!" Then suddenly he began a series of contortions and screams that I thought would only be possible to a slinky. He started to jump out of the cart still screaming and dramatically squirming but realized the cart was still moving. While screaming an array of expletives, Joey tried to reach his foot back in the cart to hit the break. Finally he stopped the cart and shook his shirt out while unashamedly dropping the F-bomb and screaming ITS BURNING MY ARMPIT!!!!

Somehow the tree had swiped his cigarette and placed it inside of his shirt. Oh how sweet the gods are at times. I don't think I have ever laughed harder at a spectacle.

My laughter would soon end.

Upon arriving at the 12th hole we both smacked our balls down the fairways like pros.
Feelin’ good. We started giving each other pointers.

We hopped into the cart and proudly made our ways down the course looking for our new prize possessions. We began zipping up a very steep hill in our speeding little cart when Joey saw my ball. Instead of stopping he decided to turn the cart at an incredible rate to swing back around for another pass. Unfortunately Joey had not heard of Sir Isaac Newton and those “laws of physics” and started turning the cart in an unforgiving way,…on an incline. I noticed this and calmly prepared to jump. As I prepared to jump, Joey failed to see my preparation and gave the cart one last extra turn. This, my dear readers, slung me uncontrollably down the grassy knoll like a rag doll.

Now, I don't know if any of you have uncontrollably tumbled down a hill - I don’t mean like "for fun" on a date. I mean like "oh crap I am rolling uncontrollably down this hill." - but it is an interesting experience. I came to a halt from my free-for-all tumble, positioned in such a fashion as to see my friend Joey up the hill looking at me, still in the cart, completely bewildered. Realizing what he had done, he jumped out of the cart and began the most hilarious looking jog/trot/sprint/gallop down the hill, saying only the words "OH MY GOD" over and over.

I am happy to say that Joey's guardian angel got on the CB and called my guardian angel and gave him the DL on Joey, because I made it out of that golf trip without a scratch. However, we haven’t played golf together since, nor shall we.