TEE TIME
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I’m lucky enough to play in several different golf groups with dear friends at Webhannet Golf Club in Kennebunk Beach. None of us have been ogled by a lifeguard or carded in decades. We are Seniors enjoying (most of the time) this wonderful game.
We never fail to say “GREAT SHOT!” if someone hits a Calloway that actually rolls down the middle of the fairway and stays out of the rough. We happily remind each other of the DRUL RULE: if the golf ball is below our feet, it’ll pull to the right; if its’s above our stance, it’ll swing to the left. Then again …. “I think so. It could be the reverse but…just try it.”
We give accurate distances to the green with our range finders, if we remember to bring them. Unfortunately, I’m not always sure what to do with that information. Should I use a 7 or an 8? Maybe a 6? God forbid I go into a green-side bunker. That might entail notifying the club Maintenance Dept. to extricate me and my ball out of the sand.
Years of golf and the ravages of life have taken their toll on our bodies. These days, Louise V. and I wear copper-infused supportive knee braces and Pam is contemplating getting one. Betty sports a band-aid on two fingers of her right hand which she says helps her arthritis. (But the other day when she taped the wrong fingers, we all commiserated, even though…wrong fingers.)
Sandy can’t play regularly because she’s suffering from light-headedness. Donna T. has a torn rotator cuff. Camille walks 9 holes bravely, pushing and pulling her cart, even though she underwent a major operation on her larynx last year. Carol, the Tuesday group organizer, has been absent a bit this summer, tending to her sick husband. Kathy, luckily, lives right next door to the club so the bag boys regularly deliver a golf cart to her front door an hour before our tee time.
Welcome to Senior Lady Golf!
There was a time when I wouldn’t consider teeing off unless I’d hit a variety of clubs on the range, then putted for 10 minutes.These days I careen into the parking lot in my Subaru, greet the girls and head directly to the tee. (That is, unless I show up an hour early because I thought the game was 9, not 10 AM.) I always used to schedule a lesson from the pro midway through the season to correct an errant swing or review how to chip over a bunker onto the green.
Today? Eh!
What’s the use? Even though I’m still “on the right side of the divot,” there’s no halting the steady physical erosion of energy, skill, determination and daring. Given the choice between a pitching iron to the green for a 65 yard shot, I opt for my 7 hybrid and worm-burn that mother all the way up (if I’m lucky) to the hole. I’ve grown to appreciate worm-burners because sometimes they actually work.
I look at younger lady golfers with a tinge of envy that some days accelerates to jaundiced-eyed jealousy. They stride to the tee in their Golftini sleeveless shirts and short pleated skirts. Not me. With arms that resemble a human raglan, thighs that are a road atlas of varicose veins, and shins dappled with bruises and MOHS surgery scars, a full-body catsuit is in my future.
But guess what: I’m not giving up the game. Nor are my pals. As Lee Trevino said: the older we get, the better we were. And believe me: we were good! I sort of remember that.
