Another adventure was just ahead. A bad swing in the roughmanaged to detach my driver head from the shaft, leaving me with a very interesting souvenir paper weight. A loaner club and six strokes got me down to the next challenge...a lake. I hate water hazards! At our Lakeland golf course, I’ve actually created a pile of underwater balls in the centre of one that is known among my golfing buddies as “Dave’s Island”...I prefer to refer to it as my liquid hole-in-one. Finally, we arrive at the putting green. Why can’t they be level and smooth? Grounds crew have the entire off-season to get this right. I’ve tried all the tricky stuff seen on TV − “reading the green.” Tough enough at age 80 to get down into a crouch position and look knowledgeable while holding my putter so that it dangles in line with the pin (stick, flag, pole − you choose) …but what is that supposed to tell me? I gently putt to the left and, with a mind of its own, the ball goes right. Is it possible that my putter is defective? I don’t want to brag, but there’s one thing which I havebeen able to master on the green. I can’t do those fancy things like flipping my club in the air and catching it by the grip just as the pros do when they sink their ball − frankly, I don’t get that many opportunities. Or use the back of my putter to flip the ball from the ground into the air, and catch it. I’ve tried, but these tricks are way beyond my skill level. However, the one thing that I can do to the amazement of my friends is putt towards the hole and, with careful counter spin, defy the laws of gravity so that the ball tracks around the rim to perfectly position itself about five feet away on the other side of the cup. Every so often though, this trick goes wrong and the ball heads into the hole. Oh well, practice, practice. Can anybody explain how a golf ball weighing 1.62 ounces and measuring 1.64 inches wide, can be three-quarters of the way into a 4.25” standard hole, and then“lip out” in an entirely different and more challenging direction. Where is Einstein when you need him? Incidentally, cups on a green are just not round holes. They are evil, malicious beings with a mind of their own. Combine this with the fact that golf balls do not obey Newton’s threeLaws of Motion, while also ignoring gravity. Sir Isaac Newton spent too much time sitting under apple trees, rather than playing golf. Otherwise, he would have become aware of a fourth law −“for every golf ball heading towards a cup, there is an equal and opposite force which denies entry to three out of four putts.” This would explainmuch. How does a golf ball heading straight and centre for the cup all of a sudden spin around the rim 360 degrees and head back towards you and into “bogeyland.” Furthermore, I’ve seen many PGA pros staring at a missed putt with the ball sitting half-in and half-out of a cup, attempting to move the ball by psychic teleporting powers. In one memorable TVmoment, a ball was hanging on a cup’s rim. The caddy called to the golfer, “don’t go near it”...and sure enough, after remaining completely motionless for ten seconds, it dropped into the hole. No earthquake, no bolt of lightning...just a golf ball and cup doing their thing in symbiotic, but evil harmony! CSANews | FALL 2021 | 27 Travel
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