Gray Gardner

Yesterday I went golfing with 3 other guys at Southern Oaks golf course in Easley.  I was feeling pretty good about the situation as I loaded my clubs onto the cart.  It was going to be the day I turned my golf game around, even though I hadn’t played in 5 months.

We drove our carts to the first tee box where I coolly lifted my new driver and a couple of balls from my bag.  (After all, first hole is a warm up, so you can take as many shots from the tee as you want, right?  Right.)  Neal went first, scorching the ball right down the middle of the fairway.  Justin followed with a decent shot down the left side of the fairway, and Matt then after with a fade toward the right side.  And then it was my turn.  I smoothly made my way to the tee box.  I set up the ball and tee, took a couple of practice swings — it was game time.  I took a deep breath, reached back, swung, and lasered a shot up towards the sun.  As Justin said, “Dude I think that hit Jesus.”  Indeed it might have.  It eventually came back down to earth, but in the wrong fairway.  It went way right.  I laughingly teed up another ball, ready to get things started the right way.  Again, I took a deep breath, reached back, swung, and hit a laser; but this time it was only about a foot off the ground, and heading straight towards the parking lot.  Ball #2 disappeared behind some trees into the mass congestion of cars.  We heard it hit pavement and bounce, then BANG -  car.  We jumped in our carts and floored it, nearly reaching speeds up to 10 miles per hour.  Luckily the owner of the car wasn’t around, so we were good.  It didn’t do any damage anyway, otherwise I would have left a note that said something like, “DON’T PARK IN THE WAY OF MY GOLF BALL!”  Something along those lines.

A few holes later, and several lost balls later, we reached the #7 tee box.  Needless to say, I was ready to bring the pain upon the next golf ball I hit.  My 3 companions started the hole in familiar fashion – all fairway shots.  I proceeded to tee up my ball (I’ll say it was probably ball #14 at this point) and loosened up with a couple of practice swings.  I then prepared to swing, bringing the club head back, rotating through.  I made contact with the ball squarely, but something felt weird as I followed through.  I realized as the ball was sailing off to the right of the fairway, that my club head had flown off to the left, some 50 yards from the tee box.  I broke my new driver.  It was a free driver, and it wasn’t really of any value, so I laughed.  But still – how does that happen?

The only logical reason I can think of is that I just swing too hard.  They don’t make clubs for the velocity in which I swing.  I may be contacting someone with Titleist about manufacturing solid steel clubs for people like me who have too much brute strength for golf.

After that hole, I lost 2 more balls before finishing up the front 9.  Fortunately we didn’t play the back.  I hate showing guys up with my golf game.

-Gray