Fore!

Some summers ago, I was in Denver visiting my sister and her family. One morning, someone suggested a game of golf.

I’d played golf only a few times in my life. But I figured, nice day, get some exercise, move the legs, see some scenery, try my hand at it. What the hell.

So, off we went to a course whose name I no longer remember. My brother and brother-in-law were playing and my nephew, too. Playing at a high altitude helped, since even a bad shot went farther in the thin air. The course was fairly narrow. Some new houses were being built on either side of the fairways.

Around the third hole, I realized I was actually having fun.

Not that I knew what the hell I was doing. I just reared back and let her rip. Sometimes the ball went somewhere, and sometimes it trickled off the tee disconsolately. I took a lot of mulligans. No one cared. Just a good time on the links.

Somewhere along the eighth hole, I teed up. It was a par five. I would have been happy with a ten. I wielded some kind of driver, a number five, if memory serves. I liked that little head. I did some obviously fake warm-up stuff, stepped up, reared back and swung. Thwack. Miraculously, the ball took off from the head of the club and sailed high and long.

For a while.

Then, mid-flight or so, the ball began to curve right. What’s that called? A slice? A hook? Well, whatever it’s called, it curved right and headed directly for the houses that flanked the side of the course.

“Uh-oh,” my brother-in-law said.

“Get ready to pay for a window,” my brother said.

I didn’t hear any glass breaking, but of course we were pretty far away.

“Nice shot,” my nephew said. “Even better if it had gone straight.”

We walked down the fairway until we came to where I thought the ball had gone. There was one house, and then, next to it, a house that was in the process of being built. I had followed the ball’s flight and thought it most likely landed there.

I walked to that unfinished house, the walls of which hadn’t been raised yet. Just the floors had been built. I encountered a man, obviously a carpenter, lying face up on the wood floor, arms outstretched, a hammer in his open hand. One of his fellow carpenters was kneeling next to him and saying,

“Dude! Dude! Can you hear me! Dude, are you ok?”

Next to the prostrate man was a golf ball. Indeed, as it turned out, it was my golf ball.

Restraining my urge to flee, I walked toward the unfortunate man who was moaning, but not dead. First stroke (no pun) of luck.

“Dude!” his friend said, “Speak to me!” And, thank the gods, the guy on his back began opening his eyes.

“Wh…whappened?” he asked dreamily.

“You got beaned by a golf ball, Dude. I think it was this dude who did it.” He looked at me. Everyone did.

“Hi there!” I said.

“Oh, my head hurts,” the injured party said, rubbing the back of his head.

But the fact is, he came around. He even sat up. I apologized like an insane man. I offered to take him to the hospital and pay whatever bill there might be, hoping an operation wouldn’t be necessary. Or a replacement. I felt awful. Here he was, working away, and, out of the blue, my golf ball finds his head.

“No, man,” he said, continuing to rub the back of his head. “That’s ok.”

“What are the odds of that happening?!?” I said cheerily, picking up my ball.

“With you, who knows,” my nephew said.

And guess what—it was ok. I got the man’s number and called him the next day. He couldn’t have been sweeter. I apologized again, but he really was all right about it.

For years afterward, I would hear that refrain at family gatherings,

“Dude! Dude! Can you hear me? Dude!”

I haven’t played golf since.

Thankfully, my family might add.