Good Times At Poppy Hills

I was standing
All alone against the world outside
You were searching
For a place to hide.

I was sitting in the cart, after another crappy shot when my buddy started singing those lines. I looked at him like he’d gone insane. He says it helps to relax. I thought about it for a second. It just might be crazy enough to work.

Lost and lonely
Now you’ve given me the will to survive
When we’re hungry
Love will keep us alive.

I hit a bunch more crappy shots after this in my very first tournament play (and second round of golf). But it helped to put things in perspective. I knew I wasn’t going to win unless I played waaaaaay over my head. But you couldn’t tell after the first few holes. Too uptight, too tense. Like I wanted every shot to be perfect and got down if it didn’t. But after that funny (trust me it was) bit of singing, I remembered why I was there in the first place. To have fun. So no matter how many times I ended up to the right with the trees, no matter how many times I hit a ball 20 feet away, out of bounds, whiffs, and every other bad thing you can think of. After all the bad plays, I got back in the cart, chugged my beer and laughed it off. I ended up hitting a 128, the highest among everyone who played (even the women). But I had a blast and that’s the only reason I’m playing.

Hole	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
White Tees Yards	390	142	369	513	381	149	351	370	496	3161
Par	4	3	4	5	4	3	4	4	5	36
Me	8	5	9	10	5	7	7	9	7	67
Hole	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
White Tees Yards	472	163	502	377	385	175	402	126	474	3076
Par	5	3	5	4	4	3	4	3	5	36
Me	7	5	12	7	6	4	7	5	8	61
										128

Thought I’d save you the blow-by-blow, golf lingo and the like. This is my round, in a nutshell. Singing in the cart and laughing so hard when we drove the cart all over the course that we almost rolled over. My buddy was just a maniac driving. We were both looking for our golf balls and drove around the area were we thought they were. It was hilly and he drove that cart full speed up and down those hills that I almost fell when he veered it to the left. By the time he stopped I was on my knees on the ground, laughing and dizzy as hell.

These are the things I’ll remember most. More than the shots I made.