A Very Strange Evening with a Gutta Perch
brinkley | June 6, 2011Yet again I’m having a hard time getting out the course when I normally do. Tonight had to be the worst. I don’t think I even left the house until 6pm. The good thing is the course is empty by then so I had the place to myself but the fires in Arizona are making our normally severe crystal clear skies hazy. I’ve never seen mountains look so dull as they have the last couple of days. Ere like and you expect anything could happen
The round is going pretty well and I’m striking the ball quite nicely. The concept of rotating my hips is really effective and I’m hitting these really nice boring drives and irons. I’m really trapping the ball nicely and leaving little diviots.
I’m well in synch when I reach the 12th hole which is downwind, but into the Sun. I focus on hitting a crisp shot that won’t ballon and really pays of. The ball shoots off on low trajectory that get a little higher than houses on the horizon and maybe as high as the first set of mountains. When it lands I can see it it is hot so I figure I’m about 125 yards away.
As I walk up the line, by the way isn’t carrying a bag of 7 clubs and 2 balls a wonderful thing? Golf the way it should be. Anyway, as I walk up the line by the 150 yard marker I’m getting a little frustrated because i can’t see the ball. Do I have the right line, YES! Well then where is it. I keep walking the line and by now I’m sensing I’m past the normal good whack of 200 yards. I keep going and feel like this is really silly. It can’t be that far, and then I see it on in the first cut on the opposite side of the fairway. Golly!!! I’m only 75 yards away. I’ve never been this close before with my 1905 and gutta perch replica. Holy Smokes, I know a trailing wind but this was great strike and it landed on a slightly down slope the propelled the ball somewhere between 240-250 yards according to Google Earth.
Of course the rest of the hole was not as well played. I hit my 56 lofted smooth face into the trap, shanked a shot coming out, chipped within a foot and took a 5. But that drive, my goodness that drive.
So head on to 13 feeling good about the swing and the driver in particular. Hit a nice drive a little higher than the last one that wind takes to the left side of the fairway where I line a 26 degree lofter to just inside 150 yards. It’s in heavy grass but I think I can get there with the 32 degree lofter. I put a good swing on it but the face stays open and I could have hit it a little fat. The later is unlikely but with it back in my stance it heads out to the right when total disaster strikes.
The ball lands about 75 yards away smack dap right on a robin enjoying a worm from the fairway. The robin and ball went about the same distance afterwards (2 feet) and the robin started flopping around for a minute or two. I thought oh good I just stunned him, and then he went that ere kind of silent still.
Ah nuts, I just killed a bird. But come on I was using a soft ball. Well I got news for you it isn’t that soft. His innards were on the outside and feathers were mighty ruffled. I felt sick to my stomach as I approached it. I checked it out from a distance and then went up to my ball which looked up and said to me, “What!!! Come on let’s go, Lights a wasting. Besides I don’t have any bird guts on me so let’s play.”
The audacity of some golf balls. Doesn’t he realize as a gutta percha he’s a dying bread. Yeah robins are a dime a dozen but a gutta percha, that has to be on the endangered species list if it isn’t extinct already.
When I got to the 17th I thought here we go again when another robin was right in front of the tee box. Yo…Shew….Your cousin just took his last breath because of this gutta perch and I wouldn’t be taking any chances if I were you. But the gutta percha totally ignored natures bird and went for the golfing birdie instead settling in at 2 feet below the pin. I think the fact we were playing through a foursome made the ball focus on the golfing rather than nature birdie.