Went through the same excruciating experience. Here's a chapter in my book that documents it.
Ray Bolt, the forty-year-old head pro at
Mountain Lakes, was behind the pro shop counter when Andy walked in. “What’s going on, Andy.”
“Not much. Just looking for a game. Anyone going out?”
“There’s a single at
2:10. You can hook up with him.”
Andy checked his watch and frowned. Only ten minutes to hit range balls. He looked over at the Megadriver resting on the rack. He could take it out and use it during the round, but that might not be giving it the proper attention it needed. “Nothing around
2:40?”
“Nope, just open times or foursomes until after
3:30.”
Andy didn’t want to wait that long to play, and didn’t want to play by himself. He decided to give his old driver one more round to make good. “I’ll join the single.”
After changing into shorts and a golf shirt, Andy rushed down to the range and started swatting range balls rapid-fire to warm up. Before he even had a chance to hit his driver, he spied a solitary golfer walking toward the first hole. He shouldered his bag and hustled to the tee. “Can I join you?” he asked the stranger.
“Sure. I have to warn you, though, I’m not very good.” The man walked over and held out his hand. “Ben Perkins.”
Ben was as tall as Andy but heavier, with a bigger gut hanging over his dark green shorts, stretching his white and yellow striped shirt. He wore a crisp new ball cap with the
Mountain Lakes logo over the bill.
“Andy Harris. Nice to meet you.” He motioned to the tee box. “Go ahead and hit.”
The elevated tee, 30 feet above the fairway, offered an intimidating view of the 550-yard par-5, which angled to the right about 270 yards out. A large lake guarded the left side, which scared the hell out of Andy. He didn’t name it, though, because he only hit into it about once every ten rounds. The rest of the time he steered his ball way to the right. Toward the
Black Forest.
The
Black Forest was a stretch of dense pine trees running all the way down the right side from tee to green. Andy came up with the name one day after he flung one deep into the trees and noticed it getting darker and darker as he approached his ball, until the sun was almost completely blotted out by the towering pines.
The only good thing about the
Forest was that it was so forbidding, nothing grew under the trees so the ground was just a thick blanket of pine needles. It offered a good chance to find the ball, but didn’t help in getting it out. One time he got so far into the trees he had to take his putter and croquet his ball three times just to get it where he
could
punch out.
Ben stepped onto the tee and made three jerky, stiff-legged practice swings, his arms never getting higher than parallel to the ground. His real swing was just as jerky, clipping a weak floater toward the
Forest.
Andy pulled out his driver and teed a ball while running through his mental checklist of swing mechanics. Aiming well left of the fairway, he checked his grip, waggled the club three times, strengthened his grip and waggled the club three more times, adjusted the clubface, shifted his feet, waggled the club two more times to keep his arms loose, then whipped the club around with Tiger ferocity. His Titleist shot toward the lake, lifted into a high slice and worked its way back to the fairway, 230 yards from the elevated tee.
“Nice shot,” Ben said.
Pretty crappy
, Andy thought. “Thanks,” he replied.
They walked off together to find Ben’s ball. “You’re not a member?” Andy asked.
“Not yet. I thought I’d learn how to play first. How about you?”
“Joined about a year and a half ago.”
“How do you like the club?”
“Fine. Nice bunch of guys. Nice course.”
“Ever have any trouble getting a tee time?”
“Not yet. There isn’t a lot of public play and the membership is small so I usually just show up without a time.”
They found Ben’s ball nestled in the rough at the edge of the trees. Ben pulled an iron and made another stiff-legged chop, scooting his ball ten yards through the heavy grass. His next shot got up in the air, flying past Andy’s ball before curving back into the right rough. Ben seemed emotionally unaffected by the result, and Andy admired him for his composure.
Andy caught his second shot cleanly—a 5-wood fade that left him 125 yards to the green. A 9-iron got him to within 25 feet, and two putts gave him an easy par.
It took Ben three more shots to reach the green, and three putts to hole out. On the second tee he pulled a scorecard from his back pocket. “Do you want me to keep your score?”
Andy shook his head. “That’s okay. I’m just out to work on my swing.”
After a par on two, a bogey on three and another par on four, Andy was stoked. Although he wasn’t hitting his driver like he wanted, it was his best start in a month. Maybe his slump
had
finally run its course. On top of that, at his current scoring pace he’d be four over after 16 holes; he could bogey 17 and 18 and
still
break 80.
The fifth hole at
Mountain Lakes, a par-4 measuring 385 yards, doglegged to the right around a massive bunker Andy called the Gobi Desert. The hole looked as if it should accommodate his left-to-right shot nicely, but he’d played out of the Gobi more times than he could count.
Determined to impress Ben with a mammoth drive, he lined up toward the mounds on the left, went through his latest preshot routine and made his most powerful swing. At impact the driver twisted in his hands, causing a massive slice that sent his ball soaring toward the
Gobi. The shot suddenly got worse when his ball missed the Gobi, kicked sideways off the side of the bunker and rolled out of bounds. Andy froze in horror, summoning all of his will-power to resist hurling his driver down the fairway. A few seconds later he backed off the side of the tee box, grumbling, “Go ahead.”
After Ben hit a chopper up the middle, Andy teed another ball, skipped his preshot routine entirely and swung as hard as he could again, hammering a rainbow slice into the Gobi.
He found his first ball in the middle of a homeowner’s garden, 20 feet past the
OB stakes. He wanted to play it anyway and started thinking of reasons why he was being unfairly penalized. The garden was too close to the course. The bunker was too close to the OB stakes. Although both justifications made perfect sense, he still had one more problem: to play the ball he would have to scythe a bunch of flowers on his follow-through. Sighing hard, he pocketed the Titleist and went to play his other shot.
With his second ball sitting up cleanly on the sand, he gauged the distance, grabbed a 3-iron and, following the advice in his golf books, choked down and dug in his feet for stability. It didn’t do any good. The bottom edge of his club skulled the ball’s equator, shooting a bullet into the lip of the bunker.
“Dammit!” He slammed the 3-iron back in his bag and yanked out his sand wedge. Once over his ball, he realized he had no shot over the lip. He was so mad he slashed at it anyway. The ball thumped off the lip and bounced back two feet. He wound up and chopped at it once more, splashing the ball and a small bucket of sand over the edge of the trap.
In a fit of seething fury he whipped his wedge end-over-end across the cartpath, bouncing it into a large rhododendron. He’d finally snapped. Finally thrown a club. The act instantly stirred a mix of emotions—a measure of embarrassment for losing control, and a considerable amount of pleasure.
That pleasure turned to remorse when he fished the club out of the bush and noticed that the perimeter-weighted clubhead was angled in a strangely unnatural direction. The shaft was badly crimped a foot from the head, rendering the club useless. He’d lost his trusty wedge, broken its neck. Staring numbly at the club, he analyzed the numbers: One club thrown, one club broken. A 100% breakage rate.
It took him four more strokes to hole out. As he walked off the green he added up his score
. A ten and a broken club. Can it get any worse?
He suddenly stopped in his tracks, hit by a vague dread that somehow it
was
worse. What was it? Maybe something connected to crossing the afternoon off of his appointment book. He replayed the previous Sunday again, trying to remember everything Carla had said. Did it have something to do with Matt . . . ?
“Oh, shit! I’ve gotta go.”
Ben turned toward him in surprise. “You’re quitting?”
“I forgot something important I was supposed to do. Sorry, I wish I could stay.” Andy didn’t wait for Ben’s reply. He hooked both arms over the bag across his back and started trotting back up the cartpath. Halfway to the fifth tee he veered into the trees, bobbed and weaved around some low-hanging branches and cut through someone’s yard. When he reached the road leading back to the clubhouse he broke into a run, cursing his own stupidity as he bounced down the street in his Softspikes.
