I was shocked. Yesterday at Grand Island Golf Club, my wife and I were playing in the early morning to beat the heat. We were just about finished with our round and for once I was playing great – and beating my wife (her score, that is!).
(I had to clarify that since I had a reader of one of my articles ask me if I had ever hit a woman after she read one of my columns. I had stood up for a police officer who hit another woman who was interfering with his attempt to arrest one of her female friends. I guess that she thought that it was OK to strike a police officer, and not get hit back, as long as you were a woman! I do not think so!)
Anyway, my wife and I had finished hole 15, a par 3, and we hadn’t yet left the back part of the green when here comes a golf ball flying over our heads. It landed in the water on the back side of the green. I couldn’t believe it! The foursome on the tee for this hole had teed off before we had cleared the green, which is something a golfer does not do unless you are trying to hit someone or come close to them so that they will play faster. It is just not done by a golfer unless you are looking for a fight or want to get kicked off of the golf course. It was especially a terrible thing to do because someone could get hurt very badly.
The guy who did it was lucky that I am nearing age 74 instead of 24. Instead, I just yelled a few things back at him and went on and finished the round without incident. Golf is different from a lot of other games and is played with each golfer being trusted to follow the rules completely and never doing something like this. It is a gentleman’s game, so to speak.
After finishing our round, we went to the club starter, Phil Ragsdale, and told him what happened and asked him to take care of the matter, which he said that he would. The next day when we returned to play another round, the individual came back and apologized.
We accept the apology and hope that it doesn’t happen again to someone else. If it ever happens again to us, I am afraid that I will be doing more that reporting the guy. Of course, it depends upon how big the guy is and how stupid I feel that day!
Golfers, please never hit into someone ahead of you. You really could cause some serious injury to someone like me, or my wife, and that wouldn’t make much sense, would it?
Have a great golf day and hit’ em long and straight!
