Andrew Nichols, Aaron Barnhart, and I have been planning a game of golf for a while now, and today was the day. Throughout the afternoon, rain showers have been popping up here-and-there, but the three of us are tough, right? We can handle a little rain, huh? Yeah, we’re men! So we decided to give ‘er a go!
Well, we were playing at a course that I had never heard of, but I thought I knew where it was. I left the office with 30 minutes to drive to a course that I thought was ten minutes away. Three golf courses, and forty five minutes later, I was pulling into the correct course. I was embarrassed, but they are cool, and didn’t seem to really care. There was not a big line waiting to tee off, anyway because of the ever blackening skies.
I was first to tee off. I hit it good and long, but the ball went right, but in playable territory. Andrew and Aaron both hit it on the fairway (GRRRRR!!), and we went to hit our second shots. I had a really nice second shot, and so did they; we were within about twenty feet of each other. Again, all three of us had nice chips onto the green, but Aaron’s shot tried to roll a bit, but stopped really fast because of how saturated the green was (it rained a lot the past couple of days). I took this into consideration, and put some “oomph” into my putt, and got within two feet of the cup. Andrew put some “oomph” into it too, and hit it right off the green!. Aaron, and I both sunk the putt, while Andrew ended up four putting. Ouch! Bogey on a par four, I’ll take that every time!
Next hole, I had honors (I’m not used to that). I ended up topping it, but at least it made it to the fairway. At this point the sky was really dark, rain was beginning to spit, and the wind was blowing really hard right in our faces, so I’m sure that was messing with our mad golf skillz. Aaron hit a shot almost identical to mine, and we were within five feet of each other. Andrew is left-handed, and when he slices, it goes to the left, and let me tell you, he can slice it! That ball probably went as far to the side as it went forward (hey, I remember being able to do that too!). I duffed two shots on the fairway before finally connecting and putting it about thirty feet from the green, but at that point the rain was coming down, and everybody was scrambling for the clubhouse, so we left our balls where they were, and decided to go to shelter, too.
After about then minutes, the rain was just a drizzle, and we decided, “Hey, this is nothing. Lets go play some more golf!”. Well, we were the only ones that got back into our carts. Humph, what a bunch of sissies! Well.... by the time we made it back to our balls, the rain was a full-on downpour. Thunder rolling, we decided to “just do it”. Aaron was not really into it, but Andrew and I are immature enough to get a kick out of playing golf in this kind of insanity, so we grabbed our wedges, and headed back out onto the fairway. I hit a nice chip with my Miracle Wedge, and landed about ten feet from the cup. By the time I retrieved my putter, and made it onto the green, it looked like a swimming pool! There was about 3/4 of an inch of

water standing on the green, and the cup was totally submerged. It was awesome! Let me tell you, putting through standing water is not an easy task. It took three putts to get ten feet to the hole, and when I sank the ball, it just disappeared underwater with a rush of mud from the bottom of the cup.
A few pictures, and some “Oh Yeah”s later, and we were back into the carts heading for the clubhouse. Well, these carts don’t have the most aggressive tires on them, and they get very poor traction on a flooded golf course. I ended up driving me and Andrew along a ridge back to the clubhouse, and spun a 360, and slid backwards down a steep hill to the flooded fairway of another hole! There was no way that I was going to make it up that hill, so I proceeded to blaze across the standing water filled fairway to a cart path on the far side, spraying muddy water from the tires the whole time (so cool). The parking lot was totally flooded by now with about five inches of water too, so it was a splashing good time dropping the clubs off to the cars. You should have seen the water spraying from the cart! We went to the desk, got a rain check for the course again, said bye, and went out through the flood to our cars.
My Treo got a thorough soaking, and stopped working for about an hour. I think it is fine now, though. My bag, shoes, and clubs are all drying off now, and I never got cold, so I’m not worried about getting sick. We had a great time, and made a terrific memory together. What a blast!
