Our Golf Lesson

Dear Sue,

Thank you very much for the loan of your clubs to take our golf lesson yesterday. We didn't have a towel to wipe off the heads (from all the divots we dug up)... hope the guys took care of that. We so enjoyed our new golfing experience, even though we had sort of a rough start and "injuries" in the end (read on).

We had a lot of fun... in fact, we were the only ones having fun on the golf course yesterday, it seemed. Apparently there was a women's club championship going on and ladies were returning looking oh so serious and studying hard at cards in their laps. Then we later learned from Sean about the important tournament.

When we arrived, we went to the cart area but had a hard time getting attention (maybe we looked too much like tennis players). It was laughable, really, several times we would look cart guys straight in the eye and they would turn their heads and go about their business. We tried to see name tags as they whizzed by, looking for "Jarrett" but we never found him. Finally Mike came out of the building and paused long enough for us to practically tackle him and fire off our questions. Mike said Jarrett wasn't working that day so Mike went in the back and brought out your clubs (very nice rig you have there, I might add) and put them in a cart for us. We tipped him like you told us to and asked him where we were to go. Mike told us to take the cart over to "the clock" and Sean, the pro, would meet us. Then he turned on his heel and dashed off. Mary and I piled in the cart and I tried to take off but it wouldn't go. Then we noticed there was no key in it so back to the cart shed we go to get someone's attention again. This time we used slightly more aggressive tactics and cornered another gentleman who slipped his hand in his pocket and presented me with a key. Off we go again, back to the cart; I was behind the wheel for the first time so together we figured it out (giggling all the while at our newbie-ness ) and got the cart rolling. "Yay, we are golfers!" we exclaimed as we rolled about 30 ft. We got as far as the path and faced our first dilemma; how to drive on it. It seemed so narrow, and could we could go left on what appeared to be a one way street? We sat there, contemplating the situation when Donna Greisbaum came by (again, more very serious faces) with Pam (I think it was Pam, it looked like her but without her usual smile), and Donna told us to wait for Sean. About that time Sean appeared and we breathed a sigh of relief. Sean got a cart and we followed him over to the practice area and we had a very, very fine golf lesson. We really liked his personality and he was very supportive, even when we whiffed the ball, Sean found something positive to say about it.

It was great when we hit the ball right, which didn't happen often, but once in awhile we would get one off just like on t.v.! Sean showed us how to grip and swing and explained some technical stuff (like longer irons have lower numbers which we decided should be the other way 'round), then he turned us loose to hit some balls from the practice area where we terrorized the ducks and scared away the 'gators. After an hour he had us go to the driving range to line up with other "real" golfers where we proceeded with the same inconsistency, whiff a ball one time, hit it 800 yards the next (well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, more like 100).

We have a new admiration and respect for golfers. We also have a blister in the same place on both our left hands (guess that's what the leather glove is for, huh?) and Mary wrenched her back.

When we're all healed up, maybe we'll try it again!

Thanks again, Sue, for the loan your nice, fancy clubs and giving us a heads up on what to expect, how to dress, and how to tip.

Love, Chere