Mayan Ruins

So I finally moved back to Virginia after quite a long and drawn out hiatus. It feels so good to be back. Rental issues, future plans, bills, and dreams of crack-laced cigars have all been moved to the backburner. My first day back I waited around for 9 hours before I was put out on a loop. I didn’t care. I just couldn’t wait to see the golf course and get back into shape again.

Yeah. Getting back into shape. I had forgotten how hard caddying was on the body. And the heat didn’t help. Carrying two bags in 95-plus degree heat with humidity feels pretty wonderful, let me tell you. Fortunately, both of my players were good sticks and didn’t split me too often.

Since then I’ve done three loops and haven’t read a putt yet. It’s kind of like the feeling you have when you go a couple of months without sex (and for those of you who never have to wait that long, you should all just burn in hell), and then the opportunity finally arises. You’re a little nervous and you’re not really sure how to take the next step. That’s exactly what it feels like for me on the 1st green nowadays. Do they want a read? Will they ask me for one later? Are they going to be happy with the way I read their putts?

Sooner or later I’m going to have to stop the foreplay and just come right out and say that I want to have sex with them on the 1st green.

Wait. That didn’t come out right. There’s no way I’d be that easy. Let’s say the 12th or 13th green. Or some place with a lot of bushes. Or maybe if they promise me a lot of money. I mean hey, crack is expensive these days. The market is really booming. I can’t get away with short selling it on the street anymore.

(Here comes a rather impressive segue)

I definitely saw the weirdest divot of my entire life today. It was on the 10th hole, and it was achieved by an individual with a 37.4 index. I only mention that because, as a general rule, higher handicappers are able to do things to a golf ball once thought of as freaking impossible by contemporary physicists.

So this Hurculean demigod of a man steps up to his ball, which is sitting above his feet in the middle of the fairway. Due to the sinister nature of the course designer, when he takes his stance he appears to have a downhill lie as well.

(At this point in the story, I need to specify that I dropped out of Calculus III, and so any assumptions or subsequent conclusions on the outcome of this shot I make are not based on the laws of vector mathematics)

With this lie and stance, the swing and ball flight could be almost anything. Well, Hercules took a mighty swing, took a mighty divot, and let out a mighty fart. The shot was horrible. The ball went everywhere except for his target. During the fallout, I ran up to collect the divot and replace it. When I arrived back at ground zero I saw something quite profound. Normally, when a normal person takes a normal divot, the section of earth that was sliced is fairly “normal.” It looks like a flatter, smoother “V” or a flatter, italicized “U.” In other words, the divot looks uniform in some way. This divot, however, looked more like ancient Mayan ruins. There were levels involved. It almost looked like a “Z” if you took the “Z” and made the middle of it 90 degrees instead of 45, and then extended the two ends about 8 inches apart.

I could be wrong, but I thought that the impact position was the one part of the swing that was the hardest to work on and control because the club-head is moving so quickly at that point. Somehow, this individual created half a divot, decided that he was hitting the shot TOO fat, raised the club-head up about half an inch and then continued the divot and followed through the ball to a nice Jim McClean finish.

I just wish I could’ve taken a picture of it.