'The Royal & Ancient Golf Curse' - Part 11. A Pastime

By: Richard Voorhees


[Editor's Note: In the 10th episode, our friends met an ancient Chinese sage and gorged on wild peaches.) This is the 11th in our friends' series of misadventures, suffered under the spell of the "Royal and Ancient Golf Curse."]

The cart nymph has our undivided attention as she points down the fairway, her graceful hand gesturing, holding a partially eaten peach. The fruit is so juicy, though, she quickly brings it back to her mouth to lap up the juice dribbling down her hand and onto her wrist.

"Whoops. Hold on," she says, trying to catch the peach juice with her mouth. "As I was about to say, Hole No. 5 is a dogleg. You'll just want to follow the stream as it unfurls to the right. You can take a drop anywhere around here."

"How did we end up in China?" Beer Boy wants to know.

"Things happen," she replies.

"Maybe it was that bunker back on Hole No. 3, Irish. You seemed hell-bent on digging your way to China," says Wild Turkey.

"Maybe space got folded somewhere back there…"

"Like origami and we passed through a worm hole…"

"Don't mention worm holes! Next thing we'll have tape worms!"

"Or my library will be riddled with book worms."

"Maybe we're suffering from mass psychosis…"

"But that's our normal state!"

"Who was the ancient gentleman?" I ask.

"An old acquaintance," admits the cart nymph.

"He misses you."

"It can't be helped. East is East and West is West."

"But this is the Far East."

"Not any more," says the nymph. "Enough talk. Irish Coffee, show us the way. Golf is your pastime, not chitchat!"

What I can see of the fairway stretches between the stream on the left over to Tiantai Mountain on the right. (Or whatever mountain it is now.) I open my stance a bit and try to visualize hitting a fade with my 3-wood. I uncork one of the best fairway woods of my life! My compadres also hit nice shots and we truck on down the fairway, reinvigorated, our minds on golf, hoping to get a glimpse of the flag.

This landscape - with its mercurial river and towering, majestic mountain -must have welcomed a thousand watercolorists before it was turned into a golf curse… er, course. You know what I mean. Everything around us looks pretty as a picture. I glance to my right at the trees at the foot of the mountain. The leaves begin to turn yellow and orange and blood red, right before my eyes.

"Guys! Check it out. Look at the trees over there!"

"Omigod!"

"Whoa!"

"Trippy."

"Maybe those were hallucinogenic peaches…"

"Oh, no," says the nymph, "not exactly."

Before we know it, the wind picks up and start peeling leaves off the trees. Soon the fairway is half-covered in fall foliage. I'm trying to keep my eye on my ball as I hurry along. Next thing you know, our balls are going to be lost and buried. Who knows what the penalty for that will be?

"It's getting cold."

"No kidding."

Single Malt and Beer Boy must have been Boy Scouts, because, man, are they prepared. They immediately produce fleeces and windbreakers from their golf bags. Zip, zip. They could have been quick-change artists in a former life. Wild Turkey manages to find a raincoat in his infinite golf bag, the albatross, and I pull a rumpled windbreaker and scarf from mine. (Hey, we can handle a little weather.) Leaves are pelting us. As we continue our march, ever more dry leaves of all shape and size crackle under our cleats. Fall comes on fast around here. When we get to where our shots seem to have gone, most of the fairway is covered in leaves.

"What's the penalty again for a lost ball?"

"Rule 27: You're penalized a stroke and have to hit from where you last hit."

"What's the penalty for a lost mind?" Single Malt asks.

"You're looking at it," Wild Turkey says. "Ain't that right, Coffee?"

"I'd hurry up and find your balls, boys," says the cart nymph. "If I'm not mistaken, those are storm clouds."

We look up from the blanket of leaves and see a bank of nasty-looking black clouds barreling our way. The wind really picks up and, fortunately, blows the leaves across the fairway so we can spy our balls. Unburied, they are, as if back from the dead.

"Quick, let's hustle it."

"Ready golf!"

The green and the flag are still not in sight, so we figure we better try to rope another fairway wood, following the bend in the river. Whackety whack whack whack, we go.

"C'mon boys, you better ride with me," calls the cart nymph. Huge drops of rain begin to splatter us as we pile into the cart. Beer Boy and Single Malt have produced umbrellas as swiftly as if they were drawing rapiers in some Shakespearean drama. They hold them open out the sides of the cart to ward off the rain, which is now falling in a torrential rat-a-tat-tat.

The sky, the landscape, and the golf course look like a pen-and-ink drawing that someone spilled a glass of water over. They're all running. I glance at my watch and it looks as if it's melting. My friends look like they've suffered a shock, the kind that ages you overnight. Only the cart nymph looks untroubled. She's pulled on a cashmere sweater and has a blanket draped over her lap.

"The reason the old gentleman and I can no longer converse is that even when we find ourselves in the same place, like today, we're living in different time," she says.

"Wow."

"I'm afraid he told you a fib," she says.

"How so?"

"Long ago, when he and his friend left us to go home, they never found their wives and children."

"Huh?"

"The three weeks they spent with us lasted three hundred years in their village."

"What?"

"They were able to go back to their home, their village. The place. They never got back the time."

"But…"

"It was too late."

"Oh."

Finally I murmur: "What about us?"

"Oh, you," she says, turning to give me a quick smile. "Maybe it'll be different with you."

The temperature is dropping and the rain turns to snow. Our golf balls are patiently awaiting us with little mounds of snow resting on top of them. We four old friends exchange some long looks. The snow falling on my friends' heads makes them look gray-haired. Hoary. Like very old men all of a sudden. Our hearts have gone out of the game once again, but we take our swings and climb slowly back in the cart. The libations nymph drives on.

"Why don't I stop up ahead and make you a hot drink? What can I get you? She asks. "Irish Coffee?"

"Are you asking me?"

"Not just you. How does an Irish Coffee sound, you boys?"

"I wouldn't say no."

"It'll keep your hands warm," she says encouragingly. "And the rest of you."

"Oh, boy," Single Malt says morosely.

As we reach the hill in front of us, we finally see the green. At that very moment, the snowstorm begins lightening up and a fat ray of sunshine off in the distance breaks through. The nymph gets busy at her bar and whips us up Irish Coffees. They take the chill off. Except for the existential one she just laid on us. That's still having a decidedly chilling effect.

She stretches herself like a kitten pulling her sweater off. Then she hops back in her cart, releases the brake, and we glide downhill into a kind of valley. I wouldn't exactly call it a depression. Just the opposite, in fact. We leave the snow behind in the foothills. The landscape ahead glistens as if lit from a healing spring rain. Dabs of color dance before us - crocuses shout howdy, cherry trees sing out, the grass is an electric green. Single Malt brushes ice and snow out of his hair. We all brush ourselves off. I hazard a hopeful smile. We lift our drinks in silent prayer. Mercury's rising. Chin up. Talk about passing the time.

The lovely libations lady drives us toward our balls, the sky clears, and the rain-soaked fairway dries off completely. As she gently comes to a stop, we find ourselves within pitching range of the green on hole No. 5. Man, this hole's long. And it's getting hot out. Off comes the winter gear. I see Wild Turkey rummaging in his bag and pulling out a sombrero. Single Malt starts dabbing on sunscreen. (Maybe I can borrow some, if this heat wave keeps up?) Beer Boy is busy, busy, also. I pull my golf cap down and turn up my collar. That's all the protection I can muster for now.

The ground beneath our feet is brown and baked hard. It might as well be mid-summer in Tucson. Or Vegas. Or Death Valley. That must have been the shortest spring on record. It feels like it's 120 degrees out. We scratch our way up to the green and try to make short work of it.

"That's good," yelps Beer Boy.

"That's good," yells Wild Turkey.

"So's that," Single Malt calls hastily.

"And that," I say, turning on my heel, ready to run for my life. Gimmes around, offered and accepted.

When not writing about golf, Richard Voorhees is a novelist, filmmaker and lexicographer. His novel, "Shooting Genji," and his dictionary of occupations, "The World's Oldest Professions," are available on Amazon.com and at his website, www.rgvoorhees.com.