queen of the double bogey

I am a terrible golfer. I usually golf about twice a year and it's never pretty. The last time I golfed was about a year ago for the Stratton family golf challenge. We split into two even teams of four and made a bet that involved the losers buying dinner and drinks at the supper club on the lake my parent's live on. There was a lot of trash talking, drinking, and whiffs on the golf course that day...but in the end, we ended up tying, so my parents bought dinner and drinks for all of us. After dinner, my parents and my sisters were smart enough to go home before things got out of control. My boyfriend, my brother-in-law, my future brother-in-law (my younger sister's fiance), and myself moved to the cheesy outdoor "tikki hut" bar and began drinking both beer and Vodka Red Bulls while watching NASCAR (on mute) and playing our own game of 1980's heavy metal rock-n-roll trivia (since that was apparently the bartender's music of choice). By the time the sober-cab (disguised as my sister) showed up to give us a ride home, the guys were already well on their way to the proverbial doghouse. One Texas Holdem' game later, my sisters and I were so annoyed with the guys that we were actually relieved when they said they were going to walk down to the local bar. Needless to say, the next morning they all had to deal with the "Wrath of the Stratton Sisters", a topic that they had been discussing oh-so-freely in front of said sisters the night before. But I digress. In general, it was a fun family golf outing and we had hoped to make it an annual event.

But the second annual golf outing was not meant to be. For starters, my younger sister and her fiance moved to New York last winter. In addition, Pete and I are heading out of the country for two weeks on vacation later this month, and my mom is recovering from a broken wrist. So a family golf outing is not in the cards this year.

In lieu of the family golf outing, my dad (aka Chuck) and I decided to go play 9 holes of golf at a little Par 3 course today (keep in mind that I am not a golfer, but I will attempt to talk like one throughout this post).

So like I said, I suck at golf. But my short game is definitely better than my long game, relatively speaking. I have golf clubs that I bought from Fleet Farm when I was in high school. Sure, they're cheap and outdated, but they do the trick once or twice a year. However, driver technology has come a long way since I was in high school. So when it came time to tee off today, I borrowed my dad's knock-off Big Bertha (pictured). Big Bertha is the mother of all drivers. If you can't hit a tiny little golf ball with Bertha, it's time to head to the clubhouse and belly up to the bar. Bertha served me well a few times today, but as is always the case, I'm only good for about 4 - 6 nice swings an outing...and most of those are putts. But while I'm normally the queen of the triple and quadruple bogey...today I graduated to the queen of the double bogey. The stats for the day: only two or three whiffs, a couple of good putts, a couple of good tee shots, one pretty chip shot, and one sweet-ass swing with my 4-iron. So while par for this course is 29, I shot a 48. And believe it or not, that was a good golf game for me. For the record, Chuck didn't do much better...but I won't embarrass him here...except for the photo of him squatting in an attempt see under the branches in front of him as he watches his ball after hitting out of the trees.

I should point out that we both did much better at fishing later in the day (along with my mom) - we caught a mess of crappies that Chuck grilled up for dinner along with some excellent grilled veggies and some Wrongo Dongo. (I've now moved on to Franzia in the box...I kid you not).

While I did okay golfing today, I somehow managed to "tweak" the hip I had surgery on last fall. I'm hoping that between the wine and a good night's sleep, I'll wake up without my current limp. I should really stick to cycling.