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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Can't see where it landed, but I'm sure it's No Good!

I was going to let it go, but I just can't. As I've mentioned before, golfing as a twosome can lead to some questionable pairings with strangers. Yesterday was a case in point. I wouldn't go so far as to apply the O.A.I.(Obnoxious Asshole Index) to this one, but by the end of 18 it was getting close. I would call myself a "glass half full" person. The female half of yesterday's golf twosome was without a doubt a "glass half empty" gal. Let's call her Negative Nancy. A strong believer in positive encouragements, it didn't take more than a couple of holes to realize Negative Nancy did not conform to my philosophy. That's all fine and good, but she just couldn't keep her negative thoughts to herself. She was kind enough to make her critical comments about all of our less than stellar shots, not just her own. And every bloody time. Allow me to quote a few examples: Doug's tee shot lands in the rough just along the tree line. Negative Nancy: "Looks like you won't find that one!" My tee shot lands about a foot past an uphill fairway bunker. Negative Nancy: "You're in the sand for sure!" Her husband lands a long iron next to the pond. Negative Nancy: "It's in the water, I'm pretty sure!" I blow three consecutive chips toward a steep uphill green. Negative Nancy: "It's amazing how many bad shots you can hit in a row!" Well, thanks a lot for all your kind fucking words Nance. It's great golfing with you. Every hole was the same. Even if she had been accurate with her proclamations, it was in bad form. Despite her constant yapping opinion after every shot, we managed to have a pretty good day as the course was a beauty and I was fairly happy with how I scored. Once she realized I was better than her, she was eager to tell me how she didn't bother with scoring anymore. She used to be competitive with herself, but no longer. Made sense to me - she was too busy thinking up discouraging things to say all day. As the course was fairly long, when we started out, I asked her where she would like to tee off. The forward tees were her preference. So, I figured I would do the nice thing and play from them as well. She seemed to appreciate my decision, but it didn't take long for her to tell me -" I'm going to have to make you start teeing off with the men, if you're going to drive it that far." Did she expect me to apologize for hitting some nice drives? So it would seem. Then at around the 17th hole, it occurred to me, we might get stuck with her over drinks and dinner. The course had offered a special green fee and dinner special that we had found appealing at the time. How would we escape her at the 19th hole? In the cart, on the drive between 17 and 18, Doug and I hatched our plan. We'd have a long slow drink before dinner and out wait them to order food. We had a sneaky suspicion they were too cheap to spring for a drink and we were right. So we only had to suffer through 30 minutes or so with Nance and her nice husband (he made it all bearable) and then we were able to enjoy our dinner without her constant critique. Bet her three grown kids are all in therapy because they thought they could never live up to Mommy Dearest's expectations. Or maybe they just ignored her, like I tried to do.

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