He got to play golf – sort of

Just call it an annual golf getaway gone bad.

So bad, in fact, that for the first time in 23 years, it didn’t happen.

My early spring golf reunion with four former college classmates, first staged in 1987, was scheduled to be held recently in my home state of Iowa and hosted by a lifelong friend who still resides near Des Moines. In anticipation of our arrival, my friend reserved tee times at four of the top courses in the state, invested in a new gas grill for his deck and stockpiled massive amounts of adult beverages inside the refrigerator in his garage.

My wife and I decided to combine this year’s golf reunion with our annual trip to Iowa to visit her mother. The plan was to stay two weeks, with me spending the majority of the first week with my college buddies and the second at my mother-in-law’s home in the small town of Rockwell City.

But as you have probably deduced by now, that didn’t happen.

Instead, I ended up spending the better part of 14 days with my wife and her mother, playing lots of cards, eating great-tasting food that was way too healthy and trying to pass some of the time between meals by making daily walks to the Dollar General store to load up on chocolate.

The long drive to Iowa started off delightfully uneventful, with the miles rushing past as I thought about the upcoming golf reunion I anticipate so eagerly each spring.

But as we were driving on the outskirts of Sioux City, about 90 minutes from my mother-in-law’s, I received a call from my friend in Des Moines notifying me that his father-in-law, who had been battling leukemia for several years, had just suffered a major setback following his latest chemotherapy treatment and had been given only 24-48 hours to live.

In the wake of such sobering news, all golf plans were scrapped, and three days later my friend’s father-in-law died. My wife and I attended the visitation, where the family expressed relief that the suffering of their loved one had finally ended.

It was not the way I had expected the first week of my vacation to play out. But it certainly made it easier to put the disappointment of the second week in perspective.

During the visitation, my friend had inquired about possibly getting together the following week for a round of golf, or two, noting his wife would be spending some time with her mother following the funeral. I certainly had no conflicts, and had actually planned on golfing with my brother-in-law a couple of times that week.

We agreed to meet the following Tuesday and play this splendid 18-hole course near the tiny town where we had both grown up. A check of the weather forecast – which was calling for sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s – fueled my optimism that I might still find a way to put those golf clubs I had stashed in the bed of my pickup to use.

What was not mentioned in the forecast, however, was the chance of sustained 20-30 mph winds, with gusts up to 50. So when we finally teed it up, it was like golfing on Pluto.

I lost three balls in the freshly planted corn fields surrounding the course that day, and finished both exhausted and severely wind-burned.

But, yes, I had golfed – sort of.

And I still had the following day to look forward to, because my brother-in-law and I were scheduled to play at his little nine-hole course in Rockwell City.

The next day dawned bright, sunny and calm.

But after checking in at the clubhouse, we discovered that the winds from the previous day had covered most of the greens with seeds from the vast number of silver maple trees that line almost every fairway on the course.

And the superintendent had apparently taken the day off, which meant we spent the afternoon rolling our putts over those double-winged seeds my grandkids call “helicopter leaves.”

But, yes, I had golfed again – sort of.

Not unexpected, it rained hard the next two days and I spent the stretch run of my Iowa golf vacation playing cards – and trying not to talk politics – with my mother-in-law. I ended up winning four games of “Hearts” and drinking every beer in her house.

Which was fun – sort of.

Steve Bergum can reached by e-mail at steveb@spokesman.com or phone at (509) 927-2177.