Flying Balls And Other Adventures On The Course

Yesterday as I was trolling through my RSS feed I caught a post by one of my very favorite golf bloggers, Heather, that is the mastermind behind Real Women Golf. I cracked up after reading her musings about naming golf balls. In fact, I left her a comment that I was inspired to write about adventures with golf balls myself. So just to be sure to give credit where it is due - Heather wrote about golf balls yesterday and it got me thinking about some of my experiences with golf balls. It's interesting how a cue from someone else can trigger a whole flood of ideas. *Thanks for the spark that inspired today's post, Heather!*

The Mark: I was playing in a foursome at a local course. I shanked the heck out of a drive and then took a provisional and played on. I had seen where my first stinky shot landed and planned to pick it up on the way to the next hole. Sure enough, my ball was right where I thought it was and I picked it up. As I was walking back to the cart I noticed a couple of guys racing over while yelling and waving their arms. Once ran up to me and announced that I was taking his ball. I held it up to show him my distinct mark - it was my ball. In fact, there were no balls anywhere close to mine. That's when they noticed hubby in the cart and quickly walked off. I think they ran over to talk to the female on the course and then noticed she wasn't alone. Odd, but it happened.

Hurry Up: We were playing at a very nice local course near Thousand Oaks with my cousin and her husband. She is a beginner and really trying to pick up the game. We had already let a group play through but were keeping pace according to the cart GPS system. What we thought was a single drove up behind use and we decided to let him through...except he was not a single and had two other guys with him. The single ended up in the bunker and took three shots in there before he finally picked up. The other two lost a ball in the trees and actually started an extensive hunting expedition for it while we sat and waited. They did finally pick up apologize. In fact, we caught up to them on the next hole and they skipped the next one entirely to get away from us. It seems they kept losing balls.

My Ball: I know that many golfers have a particular type of ball they must play with and have neat little specific markings. Personally, if it flies and I have it then I will go ahead and hit it. I'm particular about my clubs, right down to the shafts and grips, but am not picky about balls. I think I've tried too many to have a favorite. The countless demo days, events, and golf shows that I have attended means that I have balls galore. My cute little nephews even bought me two huge boxes of balls about two years ago because they just knew I had to have them. The one thing about my golf balls is that I do mark them with a big, distinct mark so I never have a question of who it belongs to. Since my first initial is an "A" I figured this would work:



Yeah, I told you it was a big, distinct mark. I know that not many will mark their ball like that, even around here. I also wear golf shirts that have skulls on them. No one can accuse me of not being an individual, eh?