Cursed Golf (Redux)

(Some days, you just can't win. Originally I had planned a quick, lazy post--a re-post of an Easter/baseball story from a couple years ago. But then the link didn't work. So I shed my laziness and wrote the following post, only to discover after writing the whole thing, that I had already written it a couple years ago--though I must um confess, like un-boxed wine, I think I get better with age. Anyway, in the archives to the right, you can click on "Happy Easter, Frank" from April 2010 to read the Easter/Baseball post, and "True Confessions" from December 2009 to read the original, inferior but still pretty damn good post of what follows here. Me, I'm going to go kick myself.)

I know it's Opening Day here in Cleveland for another baseball season, but the convergence of the ending of Lent and the venerable Masters golf tournament is too much to pass up. Therefore, I pass along to you a true golf story, with a healthy dose of old-fashioned sin and repentance, which was told to me years ago by an old guy I played nine holes with on a blustery October afternoon:

"I was young like you, headstrong and quick to speak before I thought. You wouldn't know it by my creaky swing now, but back then I could hit the ball fairly well, though, just like now, my putting was quite the disaster. I was playing Aberdeen Gulch, which is now a strip mall out near Bucyrus. Good track, tight, lots of water, tricky greens. Something happened that day that changed my entire view of golf, fate, and religion. You see, immediately after the round, due to what occurred on the eighteenth hole, I had to hightail it right to church, right to the confessional, to confess my sin to the only priest I knew who might be able to understand my misdeed, Father McHogan. This is what I told him, and he told me, in the claustrophobic confnes of the confessional.

"'Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been four rounds, I mean, three weeks, since my last confession. I cursed up a storm on the golf course today, and I feel so bad about it.'"

"'Tell me about it all, my son.'" (Here, and for the rest of the story when imitating what the priest said, the old guy used an over-the-top Irish brogue that is heard nowhere in Ireland, just in jokes told by Americans.)

"'I was playing great all day, the best round of my life. I chipped in three times, sank two putts from over fifty feet, and hadn't set foot in a sand trap all day. I came to the eighteenth tee needing a par to shoot two over, but the way the day was going, I wasn't discounting the possibility of an eagle and shooting par for the first time in my life.'"

"'Ah, par, the holy grail of golf, innit? Never shot it myself, but there's always hope, my son, there's always hope. Just need to work on me short game, is all.'"

"'But this eighteenth hole is a doozy. Long par four, woods on either side, a big pond right in front of the green, well-bunkered.'"

"'Sounds like Aberdeen Gulch to me. Yeh, I know it well. A bugger of a finishing hole. Makes the nineteenth hole much appreciated, if ye know what I mean, lad.'"

"'I hit a monstrous drive, right on the screws, straight as an arrow. I tell you that ball looked like a comet streaking against the blue sky. And it hit right in the middle of the fairway and took a great first bounce. But then it landed on a sprinkler head and the ball made a right angle left turn and headed directly toward the woods.'"

"'Ah, that's when you turned all blue-tongued and let loose a torrent of cursings, didn't ye, son? Understandable, if still quite sinful.'"

"'No, before I could even comprehend what was happening the ball, as it finished rolling into the woods, was somehow seized like an all-star shortstop by a squirrel who came out of nowhere and fielded the ball right in its mouth and started to run back across the fairway to the woods on the right.'"

"'The varmint! So that's when you turned into a sailor on shore leave with money to spend and not a cathouse or pub in sight, aye?'"

"'No, because just before he reached those woods, the squirrel was scooped up, ball and all, by a swooping hawk who clasped the thing in his talons and started flying away.'"

"'Airborne rapscallions, those hawks! The official bird of Hell, no doubt! Talons the very hands of Beelzebub himself.' (And here, through the opaque screen of the confessional, I could sense Fr. McHogan scrunching up to the edge of his chair.) 'Of course that's when you called down eternal damnation on birds, rodents, golf, and God knows what else, didn't ye?'"

"'Well, no Father, because that bird looked so majestic as he flew farther down the hole, with the squirrel dangling from his talons squealing awful noises. It was a sight to behold. But then, just over the pond in front of the green, either the hawk decided he didn't want the squirrel or the squirrel shook himself free, but somehow the squirrel, with my ball--'"

"'Titlelist or ProStaff?'"

"'Um, neither, Father. I play only Top-Flites.'"

"'Well, my son, you need some guidance of a different kind. But go on.'"

"'The squirrel, with my ball still in its mouth, started falling right down into the pond.'"

"'Ponds in front of greens! The Devil's cesspools! Oh, I can just hear you now, letting loose a string of foul-mouthed utterings that shook those trees on either side of the fairway, no?'"

"'Well, actually, no. Because just before the squirrel hit the water, he let go of the ball, which fell smack dab on top of one of those fountain things they have in the middle of ponds to help circulate the water and the ball ricocheted wildly off it.'"

"'Confounded Man, always defiling nature with his noisy contraptions. That's when you screamed the Devil's litany, didn't ye?' (I don't know, because I've never heard it from anyone since, but I swear I could hear, through that shady screen, actually hear, Fr. McHogan salivate.)"

"'No, not then, because the ball was bouncing right toward the sandtrap.'"

"'Oh, Lord, forgive Your humble servant, but why, why in all Your Wisdom, did Ye have to create sand? I don't comprehend, Lord, I don't comprehend. But, my son, I do comprehend that by now you must have had enough bilious bile bubbling around your tongue to yawp enough filth to cause you to come running straight from Aberdeen Gulch to me with your soul between your legs, begging for forgiveness, of which the cost of repentance will surely be a month of rosaries, am I wrong, son, am I wrong?' (By now Fr. McHogan's face was smushed against that cloudy screen and I could feel his fevered breath shooting through those little holes.)"

"'Well, no, Father, because as the ball descended into the trap, it struck a rake there and somehow bounced up on the green and miraculously rolled to a stop two feet from the hole.'

"There was silence in that confessional, as I hesitated to confess my awful sin, and Fr. McHogan, by now panting, slowly slid his face down and away from the screen, slumped back into his chair, let out a long, disappointed sigh, and, again, I could hear it, shook his head from side to side. And then, in a whispered, but stern, condemning voice, that brought back all the fear of sin and damnation that only Catholic schoolboys experience, Fr. McHogan spoke."

"'Ah, dammit, ye missed the fecking putt, didn't ye, ye dumbass shithead!?'"

True Confession

Chas had a heavy conscience, something he couldn't shake, so he stopped in his boyhood church, where he hadn't been for years. He wandered around, then got up the courage and entered the confessional. "My God," he thought, "it's been a long time." Instead of the dark closet with a kneeler and a small screen, he now saw, in wonder, a large room with a huge flat screen TV, a mini-fridge, which upon further inspection was stocked with Goebel beer, a laptop with wi-fi capability, and next to that same small screen, a comfy recliner. He sat down, thinking, "Who knew? I gotta try this confession thing more often." Just then he heard the screen open on the other side.

"Yes?" In just one syllable, it all came back to him, the resonant voice of Fr. McGillicuddy, the man who had baptized Chas, gave him his first communion, heard his first several dozen confessions, confirmed him, married him, baptized his kids, and--unless he watched his cholesterol more carefully, thought Chas--might end up burying him.

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. From the looks of things," Chas looked around the spacious, well-equipped confessional "box" once more, "it's been a very long time since my last confession."

"You're on the wrong side, my son, but I forgive you. What's on your mind?"

Irish bastard, Chas thought to himself, then remembered where he was and why he was there. "Father, I live a pretty good life, but yesterday I lost all control and swore up a storm. Really took the Lord's name in vain. I'm sorry."

"Tell me about it, my son." Admittedly, Chas hadn't seen or talked to Fr. McGillicuddy in a few years, but he could swear the old priest's brogue was thicker now than ever.

"Well, I was playing golf, and I was going along great, probably the best round in my life. I come to the 18th hole, needing just a par to break 75. It's a long par four, woods on the left, water on the right and in front of the green. I stand over the ball on the tee, visualize a great shot, keep my tempo, and murder the ball. High and long, right down the middle of the fairway, 280, maybe even 300 yards. And it comes down right on a sprkinkler head and bounces dead left right toward the woods."

"So that's when you swore, eh?"

"No, I kept my calm. Just watched the ball rolling towards the woods when out of nowhere a squirrel appears and puts the ball right in its mouth and starts running back toward the tee, like he was a dog playing fetch."

"Ah, so that's when you swore, right son?"

"No, because right then a huge hawk swooped down out of nowhere and grabbed the squirrel and flew off with him, the ball still in the squirrel's mouth."

"Now of course, that's when you swore, didn't you?"

"No, it was so majestic, and unbelievable. The hawk actually started flying back up the fairway, hugging the right side, like a draw shot that's not quite drawing. And then close to the green, suddenly he drops the squirrel right over the water, like his mission all along had been to drown the squirrel."

"No doubt about it, hunh? You swore then."

"No, I was kind of feeling sorry for the squirrel at that moment, watching him fall out of the sky right over the water. But just before he hit the water, the ball flies out of his mouth."

"Say no more, my son. That's when you swore, for sure. You're only human."

"No, amazingly, the ball hits a rock sticking up from the water--it's a very well-manicured, aesthetically pleasing course--and the ball, Titleist Pro-V 3, if that matters, ricochets out of the water right onto the green and stops two feet from the hole."

There was a long silence. Chas rocked a bit in the recliner, still amazed by the whole thing. Then he thought maybe the old priest had fallen asleep or something worse, the silence was so long and, well, quiet. Then slowly, from through the screen, Chas heard a slow exhalation of breath.

"Ah, sonabitch, you shithead. You missed the goddamned putt, didn't you?"

Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez-Confessions