Citizen Journal: Nothing quite as painful as a bruised pride
The following is a very sad story…but I will share it with you now for your pleasure.
Earlier this month my brother Troy and I played in a golf scramble benefiting the Northern Idaho Firefighters at beautiful Avondale Golf Course in Hayden. The two other golfing friends who joined our team, like us, were very rusty, and together our foursome made up a group of possibly the most horrible athletes ever to pick up a bag of golf clubs. At times we golfed (and sounded) like we were experiencing the advanced stages of Tourette’s syndrome. One of our partners – I’m not exaggerating – hit three houses by the 9-hole turn! For men who were sober, we drove like drunkards (both with clubs and with carts).
Possibly the shot of the day (which might be up for argument, considering some of the life-threatening comedy out there), was performed by yours truly.
As a team we’re lying off the fairway, midway to this particularly fateful hole, in the rough (as usual), behind two trees spaced generously apart. The golf shot would need to split the trees – picture trying to kick an easy field goal between two uprights. Anyway, as luck would have it in circumstances such as these, the evil course marshal picks this moment to drive up and sit there and watch us hit (he’d gotten to know us on a first-name basis, lurking nearby throughout the day). It’s always helpful to have a little extra audience when you’re having an off day, and I start to pray as I whisper, “C’mon 4-iron, how about one time for Daddy?”
Possibly because my tithe-donation check to my church had not been paid in a timely manner this month my prayers were not answered.
Proceeding to hook the ball heinously, I hear a “crack” and watch in horror as my shot smacks the left tree so squarely that with club-holding hands still above my head in a helpless position from the follow-through, the ball flies back directly at me and my innocent friends. But do not fear, like the county summer-league shortstop they have grown to love and admire, my catlike reflex reaction caused me to dart out my hand in a crazed bit of flailing survival, and snag the ball as it screams by at waist level.
Holding back the tears from the stinging pain in my palm, I smile at the course marshal nonchalantly and remark, “I bet you haven’t seen that before?”
Showing very little composure for a man of his position – after about falling off his cart laughing at my pathetic game – he agreed that he indeed had not seen an act quite like mine, believed he might have made it rich had he caught it on videotape, and encouraging us to pick up the pace, he drove off chortling loudly and disrespectfully.
At that moment, no physical pain could match the pain in my heart. A lesson I seem to learn often was refreshed (like during those D-league softball games when another grounder whacks me in the kneecap)…no bruise hurts worse than that of bruised pride.
So, golfing friends, maybe consider practicing that shot for your bag of tricks should you ever find yourself needing to entertain your athletic friends on the courses of our beautiful Inland Northwest (or to just get a pesky course marshal off your back).
Closing note: This sad episode occurred shortly after my previous tee shot had appeared to hit a faraway house excessively loudly. (Either that or else someone was shooting with a shotgun nearby? To me, it really doesn’t seem like they should let hunters so near a public links.)
Thus we’d had to play our team’s second-best scramble tee-shot, which, as you might suspect from our team, put us hitting behind the ladies tee box as the foursome behind us were looking on. The pinnacle of heart-breaking humiliation. As you’d expect, it was pretty much all downhill after that. Fortunately our tears and sobs had pretty well worked themselves out by the time we made it back to the clubhouse to claim our last-place prize – which was: another free round.