Showing posts with label Golf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Golf. Show all posts

Thursday, May 4, 2017

The Last Hole


The Last Hole

It hasn't been a good day.
All your shots have gone astray.

On the greens, you can't read the break.
Each line you choose is a mistake.

This course has certainly taken its toll,
but now you're on the last hole.

You give some thought to the notion
of simply going through the motions.

Instead you decide to give it your all.
You have nothing to lose except another golf ball.

This was written for a fill-in-the-blank prompt.

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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Three-Foot Putt


Three-Foot Putt

One yard.
Hardly any
green between
the ball and
the cup.
Line it up.
You should
make this putt.
Aye, there's
the rub--
expectations.

It's that time of year. Anyone have any golf anecdotes to share?

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Thursday, January 28, 2016

The Confrontation


The Confrontation

The angry honking
shattered the quiet
of the golf course.
The goose ran to
intercept the interloper.
Was the intruder
a rival, a predator
or an outcast?
The fierce charge said,
"I'll do anything to
keep you away."
The target of 
the tirade looked
resigned, made
a tentative stand
then turned and
walked away.
Quiet was restored.

Have you witnessed any fights among animals? Have you written about them?

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Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Playing in the Mud


Playing in the Mud

I hear the
squish, squish, squish
of shoes on
the tee box
and the fairway.
I hear "splat"
as the club
meets the ball.
I wipe an
inch of mud
off the club 
face after each
 and every shot.
Despite sun and
wind, No. 18
is as wet
as No. 1.
So tell me,
how does the
sand in the
bunkers stay dry?

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Tuesday, May 5, 2015

A New Season


A New Season

You haven't worked out.
You haven't practiced.
Who's going to pay
the price for that? Me.

Wait. I'm teed up too high.
Pop fly-I told you so.
OK. This is your
favorite club.
Don't look up yet.
I hate worm burners.
At least you can still pitch.
Finally, we're on the green.
You have to aim higher. Higher.
I've got no chance when
you hit to the low side.
Tap me in and let's go.

What? Water on the second hole?
I have a bad feeling about this.
Plop.

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Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Rain Delay


Rain Delay

The front moves in.
Dark clouds all around.
Suddenly, the drops come down.
There are no flashes so
it's safe to wait 
beneath a tree.
Sheets of water
make it difficult to see,
but this is no long-term storm.
It goes as quickly as it came.
When play resumes,
the signs change to
"Cart Path Only"
for the rest of the day.

Do you have a story about a rain delay that you would like to share?


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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The One and Only Me and MY Golf Tournament

My cousin Sharon holding 
me, age 7, and my Aunt Lydia


It was typical kid's stuff. One of the older girls in the neighborhood convinced me to ride on the back of her bicycle. She started going faster to scare me. It worked, and as I got more tense, my legs moved in toward the wheels. My right foot got caught in the spokes.

The timing of this injury was bad because my family was going to spend a few days at a cottage in Canada. I would be relegated to sitting on the beach with a plastic bag covering my foot and ankle to keep sand and water out of the wound.

Shortly after I returned from the emergency room, my Uncle John came to talk to me. We lived in the upstairs flat of the house owned by Uncle John and Aunt Lydia.

"How long before you're back on your feet?"

"A couple of weeks."

"The golf course is having a Me and My Tournament. Each player invites someone else to play so the teams are Me and My Son or Me and My Daughter. I wanted my team to be Me and My Niece, but I don't know if you'll be ready. Let me check on the date."

A little while later, I got the good news. The tournament was going to be held later than my uncle thought. I would be ready to play!

When the day came, we set out for the golf course, just the two of us. The Me and My was a putting tournament. We went around the practice putting green twice alternating shots until we completed our 18 holes. The appropriate oohs, ahhs and groans accompanied each attempt.

A couple of days later, my Aunt and Uncle came upstairs and presented me with my first collared golf shirt. We had taken third place.

"What prize did you get?" I asked my Uncle.

His eyebrows went up and his eyes got wide. "Socks,"  he blurted out after a second of hesitation. "Boy," I thought, "I got the good prize."

Years later, my Aunt told me I really threw him off with that question. He didn't expect it so he hadn't prepared an answer. 

I still play golf and play in a few tournaments, mostly scrambles. Nothing can compare with the tournament my Uncle created to give me something to look forward to after I injured my foot-the one and only Me and My Golf Tournament.

Related Link-The Best Uncles


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Thursday, May 22, 2014

Buried Lies


Buried Lies

Take your stance.
Dig in so
you won't slip.
Going back, cock
 your wrists quickly
then propel the
club head downward.
Ball and sand
 fly together.
It takes
a firm blow,
but we can
escape from
buried lies.

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Thursday, August 29, 2013

le stein

 
 
 
Challenge No. 4 of the Our Lost Jungle Poetry Challenge is le stein. Khara House challenged us to write a poem in the style of Gertrude Stein.
 
Browse the link above to learn more about Stein's style. Khara gave us four cues from Stein's work to take into consideration:
  1. Highly experimental
  2. Word associations, while avoiding words with "too much association"
  3. Very much in the present (tense and otherwise)
  4. Repetition as a form of discovery
[Note: Stein did write some poems involving the moon so I chose one of my more playful moon photographs to use on this post.]
 
This has been my favorite challenge so far because I love word association. Usually, I have to rein myself in on this; but, this week, I could do as much as I wanted. Also, it seems like I am using repetition more frequently. The weakness of my le stein, as far as the challenge goes, is that it is too easy to understand.
 
Pace of Play
 
Waiting, waiting,
hating every second
of the waiting.
Feeling the weight
of staying in
the same place.
The waiting is
so frustrating.
I yearn to
look ahead and
pick my spot.
Setup and take
the next shot.
Feel the freedom
of the swing.
Instead, I am stilted.
Wilted by the
heat of the sun.
Not a shade
of shade in
which to stand
while I am
waiting, waiting
for those up
ahead to
move on.
 
 
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Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Course Divas

 
 
We're almost halfway through the Our Lost Jungle 30 by 30 Challenge. If we were talking golf, we would say we are making the turn.
 
Well, we are talking golf! One of this week's prompts was green. Especially in the summer, green says golf course to me. For this prompt, I focused on putting greens.
 
The Course Divas

Putting greens are the
divas of the golf course.
Pampered and protected.
Mowed and manicured.
They receive extra water
during the summer heat.
There are rules about touching
and repairing greens, and
each hole is marked so players
don’t drive carts too close.
They look beautiful, but
they are temperamental.
They kick balls right and left, and
shrug them off into woods or water.
Bad behavior is forgiven
when we hear the plop
as a putt drops.
 
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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Golf-Poetry in Motion

Well, it can be! Golf is a game of tempo and timing. The ball is just sitting there waiting to be struck. So why can't a player hit it perfectly everytime?

Like Yogi Berra said about baseball, golf "is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical." There are distractions like noise, the sun in your eyes, the wind in your face and the beverage cart creeping into your peripheral vision.

Like writers, golfers are rarely satisfied with their efforts on a given day. If I'd made that short putt on No. 3, missed the bunker on No. 8, made it over the water on No. 11, stayed in bounds on No 12 and made a hole-in-one on No. 14, I'd have shot my best score ever!

Like writing, golf draws you in. No matter how poorly you are playing, you always hit at least one shot that makes you want to play again. That's because if you can hit one shot like that....

Golf

Fairways and greens
Fairways and greens
Hit the ball
those two places.
How simple it seems!
But, I see the trees
and the rough and
the sand and
sometimes there's
water that snakes
through the land.
Of course, the biggest
hindrance of all
is the way I actually
swing at the ball.


Let me know if you're a golfer or if you have some other obsession besides writing.


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