Murphy (a true story)

RobDo · April 4, 2013

Am I nervous? No. But I can’t get the ball to sit on the tee. Don’t worry. It’s only the last round of a 3-round State Championship. Oh well, better use the 2-iron just to be safe. Now… slowly back.. and… whack! Topped it. How embarrassing. I walk off the tee with my head down, trailing the other two players in the group who are engaged in a happy conversation. They have planted their drives about 220 metres (240 yards) down the middle of the fairway.

I reach my ball, and it is sitting in someone else’s old divot. Damn. Why me? Murphy does it again. Out with a 6-iron, just to be safe, and finish up with a double bogie. So this is the way it always seems to be – my best mate is Murphy.

I struggle for the next few holes with bogies, but on the par 4 fifth, I get a drive away that splits the fairway. I join in the jovial conversation with the other two players, and we approach the position where my ball should be. Sure enough, it isn’t there. Aw, come on Murphy. What have you done now? We find a sprinkler head in the near vicinity, and add 2 and 2… We locate my ball in the rough jammed up against the back of a large tree.

We arrive at the eighth, a dog leg par 5. My drive nudges the right hand rough, but should be OK. We saunter down to the location, the rough is only light, so there shouldn’t be a problem. Where is my ball? Hang on, there is a small shrub just up a bit further. And there is a rabbit hole under the shrub. Yep, we can see the ball down the hole. Luckily, I recover the ball without penalty, and take a drop. The ball bounces off the hard ground and lodges itself directly behind the (unstaked) shrub in line with the intended next shot…..

At last, we reach the eighteenth, a tricky par 4, slight dogleg, water right, trees on left in short rough, with OOB well left of trees. A spotter has been allocated at the dogleg to save time if OOB. I hit to the left side of the fairway to avoid water, but long enough to reach the dogleg. I walk towards the ball with my head in the air. At last this nightmare is over. I get to the position of the ball, just as the spotter arrives on the scene. He indicates that my ball went into the rough, and seemed to “fly into that pencil pine tree over there”, pointing another 20 metres (21 yards) further along. As I walk towards the pine tree, I notice a house brick half buried in the ground. No. This cannot be possible!

We never found the ball, and I did not give Murphy the satisfaction of going back to the tee.

And not long after this round, I hit off the first tee at another course, and the ball landed in the light rough. All we found was an old frying pan. I went back to the tee. When walking down the next hole running in the opposite direction, we found my first ball in the middle of the fairway……..

Is this typical of my life? No. It only seems to happen on the golf course (not counting when I drop a screw on the floor in the garage, and it disappears forever).