How I Learned To Love Drag Part 10

"How's that?"

"I think your ball may have trickled into the trees."

After searching through the long rough and then the dense rainforest for a few minutes, I found the ball. And I do mean rainforest. A boy from Manitoba never saw Douglas Firs and Red Cedars higher than grain silos.

My Titleist had settled up against a tree root. I had to settle for chipping the ball back onto the fairway.

Then my next shot wasn't bad. It hit the green, but continued to roll and eventually ended up in the rough beyond the immaculately kept greens of this beautiful Royal Vancouver course. I had never mastered the art of backspin.

May's second shot was flag high, about 15 feet to the right of the pin.

I settled for a quadruple bogey eight. I should have stuck to mini golf. They stopped counting after seven shots.

Would you believe May holed her putt for birdie?

She created quite a first impression.

At the second tee, May shrugged and lamented my, "Bad luck."

"No," I replied in my best John Houseman voice, "I earned it."

"You have the honor this time."

I looked down the narrow fairway nestled in this heavily forested rugged ravine. Looking precariously close, a massive granite rock face jutted out on the right.

"Bit of a daunting hole, this next one. Dogleg right, three hundred ninety yards. It's a par four," I said in my best Sean Connery brogue.

I took a practice swing with my 1-Wood.

When I looked at a distant spot to target down the fairway, somehow I was reminded of a Tennyson poem.

Sand traps to the right of us, Sand traps to the left of us, Sand traps in front of us My driver volleyed and thundered. "Whoook!" Into the Jaws of Death, Into the Mouth of Hell, Carried the ball at least two hundred.

The little white blur flew long and high, avoiding the sand hazards, but started hooking left. Unfortunately it was a dogleg right.

"At least I'm not in the woods," I remarked.