The Fourth Hole

There’s a golf course east of here, appropriately called “Eden.” Out in the middle of the sticks, bordered by country roads, fields and forests, it really is a corner of paradise.

My father golfs there almost every day–spring, summer and fall. He took my sister and I once, and we had a lot of fun. The course’s dog “Caddie” trailed behind us, and we tossed sticks into ponds for her to fetch between drives and putts.

 I’ve been out a few times with my husband and father-in-law. We get a cart and I chauffeur my father-in-law (who is well into his eighties) through nine holes while my husband shoulders his bag and hoofs it up the hills.

I love golf. I enjoy being out under the open skies with the clouds above tumbling over themselves, the spreading glory of the windy green fairways, the thick mossiness of the grass on the greens, the birds calling from the trees, and the frogs glugging from the green-skinned ponds. A golf course is good for the soul. A perfect blend of groomed grass and gardens, blended with encroaching roughs and brambly ravines. The air on a golf course sparkles. You breathe it in, and breathe out stress.

Yes, I love to golf…but I am so abysmally bad at it. The woods in my bag are cobwebbed. I cannot hit with them, so there is no point in taking them out. I drive with my irons. And not very far, nor very straight. And I can’t get the balls to launch into the air very well. They kind of….dribble along the fairway.  Needless to say, I always head straight for the ladies’ tee. I need all the yards I can get.

The fourth hole at Eden is a short one–but you have to hit the ball over a little ravine to get to the green. It’s not a huge ravine. It’s more of a psychological pit than an actual one. Still, many of my lost balls grow mossy in its depths. I’ve read about how athletes pray at critical moments in their games, and I’ve always found that rather ridiculous. As if God cares whether you hit a home run! I think, with a derisive smirk. And yet, I always find myself praying as I tee up my ball on the fourth hole, looking past the deep pit to the flag on the green, a hundred miles away….Please, just let me get it over….please….pleeeease….because the sound of my ball smacking into a tree, branches breaking, birds squalling, is truly a heart-sinking thing. My husband searching through his bag for another ball–a crappy one, because he doesn’t want to sacrifice a good one to the pit…ah, the humanity.

Yesterday, after my husband and father-in-law sent their balls sailing with satisfying whacks over the ravine and onto the green, I bent to poke my tee into the ground, muttering my entreaties to the heavens. I had my trusty five iron. I took a few practice swings. And then….whooosh, whaaack…and off sailed that little pocked orb of white….up into the air in a perfect curve. And it dropped…right…onto…the….green….even closer to the hole than the other two balls. The men grinned and I danced. Even though I had a chance to birdie it (and didn’t), I was still dancing. Even though my score at the end of nine holes was 54, I was still dancing.

World peace is still a problem, but I got a ball over that ravine. My faith is renewed!