#12. Golf 18 Holes and #13. Drive a Golf Cart

For the Fourth of July, Dan and I loaded up the car and headed south to Grants Pass, Oregon to spend the holiday weekend with his parents.  Using this as an opportunity for a mini summer break, we made plans to get out and do some things we don't usually do when we visit Grants Pass, the first being, a trip to the grants pass golf club.

Now, when I added #12 to my list, I was sort of thinking I'd work up to it.  I'm not a great golfer, but it runs in my family, and I know A TON of people who play, so I have been interested in learning.   But still, I wasn't expecting to run out and play 18 holes right away, I thought we'd start with the driving range, then maybe play 9 holes a few times, and work up to 18.  Oh no.  That's not how we like to do things here in the Magdalen Household.  We just jump right in.  So that's what we did.  I played golf for the second time in my life on July 2nd, and played 18 holes!

Dan's parent and sister & brother-in-law treated us to a round and a cart at the Grants Pass Golf Club.   It was a beautiful, warm day... so perfect for golfing.  We headed over to the club a little bit early so we could warm up at the driving range.

After that, we tee'd off.  The first hole was great.  Dan and I are both terrible players, but we were having fun right off the bat.  On the second hole, Dan got a BIRDIE!  He was so excited, he may have jumped up & down like a little kid, and he may have clicked his heels together in the air. But you didn't hear that from me.  His first drive landed the ball on the green, just inches from the hole.  It was beautiful. I was so happy for him.

On to the third tee... I drove the cart from the 2nd hole to the 3rd tee  I was playing the girlie tees about 40 yards ahead of Dan.  I dropped him off with his driver, and drove up the path to my tee.  Like I said, I was about 40 yards ahead of Dan, and way off to the left side, on the cart path.  I got out of the cart and went around to the back to get ready.  I was getting my club out, and thought to myself, "It's probably not too smart to be in front of Dan while he tees off, but I'm so far off to the side, I doubt he'll be able to get me." So just to be funny, I called out to Dan, "Try not to hit me!  And try not to hit the cart!"    Dan laughed, in a "yeah right" kind of way, and stepped up to the ball.  Next thing I know, his golf ball is flying towards me.  

I'm in such a state of shock that I don't even know what to do.  By the time I realized I needed to get out of the way, it was a lot too late.  Dan's golf ball hit me in the inside of my left leg.  I'm guessing I was trying to step back out of the way with my right leg, and I got pounded on the inside left.  It's all a blur to me, because it happened so fast, and was by far, the worst pain I've ever felt in my life.  PLEASE NOTE:  I've never broken a bone, had surgery or major illness, nor given birth.

While I moaned and groaned and hobbled around and accused him of hitting me on purpose, Dan, who was as shocked as I was, immediately began apologizing profusely and asking repeatedly if I was okay.  I was fine, just in a lot of pain.  And considering that we still had 15 holes to go, I was a little weary of how the rest of the day was going to go.  Thank goodness we were crossing off #13 too, so I had our little golf cart to cruise around in for the rest of the day.

We made it through the first 9 holes without any more incidents, other than Dan losing 3 or 4 balls in a water trap on the 8th hole.  Maybe he didn't want me mentioning that part?  Oops.  Oh well, let me mention the part about Dan getting Birdie on the 2nd hole once more!  Dan got a Birdie! yay!

After it took us 2+ hours to play 9 holes, we decided to speed things up a bit, by playing the back 9, "best ball" style.  We liked playing that way a lot more, naturally.

On the 15th hole, we saw a little squirrel/chipmunk family of 3 scurrying across the fairway as Dan was about to take his shot.  Two of them made it safely to the bushes, while one stayed, frozen in place.  And since I hadn't learned my lesson about keeping my mouth shut while he was teeing off, I yelled out, "Don't hit the little squirrel!!"   No, Dan didn't hit the squirrel, but he almost did.  Almost did by like 6 inches.  Dan's response:  "How come you can't yell out, 'Try not to get a hole in one!'?"  I'll work on that for next time.

Another memorable hole that day, the 18th fairway...  Dan landed his drive right in the middle of the sprinklers.  They were only going in this one area... and since he had the best ball, we both had to play from it...

Injury aside, it was an awesome day.  And part of me is glad that the whole golf injury happened, because a) it made for a great story for this blog, b) it has provided lots of laughs for our family and friends, and c) the bruise is finally gone, and the memory of how much it hurt isn't as vivid, but we still have the photos to prove it.