'The Royal & Ancient Golf Curse' - Part 6. The Bunker

By: Richard Voorhees


[Editor's Note: In the fifth episode - http://www.cybergolf.com/golf_news/the_royal_ancient_golf_curse_part_5_golf_in_the_animal_kingdom, Wild Turkey was taken to task, but good, for failing to yell "Fore!" and accidentally killing a crow. This is the sixth in our friends' series of misadventures, suffered under the spell of the "Royal and Ancient Golf Curse."]

"That last hole was a tough one," the cart nymph says consolingly. "The scenery is distracting. And you had to play in front of a tough crowd."

"Very tough."

"This next hole, Hole No. 3, is under construction, so you'll get all sorts of relief if you hit an errant shot."

"Relief," groans Wild Turkey. "I could use some of that."

"What you could use is some 'Water of Life,' " says Single Malt. He pulls out his flask for an emergency bracer.

"Fill it to the brim," Wild Turkey murmurs, still reeling from that lion attack on Hole No. 2.

"Courage," says Single Malt, and we all drain our shots of whiskey, hoping this will put us back on the right path.

"Excuse me, Miss," I can't help asking, "but where the heck are we? Are we on some kind of safari?"

"You're on the front nine, Irish Coffee. Hole No. 3. It's a par-5, 666 yards."

"Whoa, that's a killer par-5!"

"Exactly," she replied.

"Are we going to keep playing as a threesome?"

"We'll see."

With only the most nebulous information to go on, we step up and hit our tee shots. Single Malt and Wild Turkey find the fairway. I land in a fairway bunker. "Sandy par, coming up," I say.

The bunker is wet and muddy but my ball's sitting up nicely. It's a shallow sand trap and I'm thinking optimistically. I take a 3-iron, planning to advance my ball as far as I can down the fairway. Crap. I hit it a bit fat and it bangs into the lip of the bunker and rolls back. Mud sprays the bottom of my pants.

Seeing my ball come to rest closer to the lip, I now take a higher-lofted club. Still thinking positively, I take my 7-iron, shift my weight onto my left foot, and try to pick the ball clean. Unfortunately, I hit it a bit thin and whack it into the side of the bunker again. I jump out of the way of the ball. My golf shoe slides and catches on a big rock.

"Ach!" shouts a muffled voice, right from under my golf shoe. I leap backwards and the muddy sand trap begins to shimmer and suddenly a head pops out! Seconds later, another head shoves itself out. Mud rolls off the sides of two heads and shoulders. Horrified, I stumble backwards out of the bunker. That's when I realize the trap's not filled with mud. It stinks to high heaven.

"Oh, my goodness," says our guide, "look what you've done!"

"What? I did that?"

"That's ground under construction."

"But…"

"The grounds keeper forgot to mark it. It's freshly manured. For a bed of lilies."

"I'm sorry!"

Meanwhile, before our eyes, two golfers plastered from head to cleat in fresh manure drag themselves out of the mire. They're clenching and unclenching their hands. Their irons are red-hot, and they're yelping, "Oww, oww." Horrifying. The air raid sirens are blaring in my head and my bowels are doing somersaults.

One of the two specters spews dung from his mouth and sputters the most incongruous thing I could ever have imagined.

"Mind if we play through?" he asks.

"No, not at all," stammers Wild Turkey. "Do, do."

"Sorry, invading like this. Please allow me to introduce. Schnapps here. Potato Vodka over there. Men of wealth and taste."

Before speaking, his playing partner loudly blows one plugged nostril and then the other: "Got turned around. Don't worry. We play fast and loose."

"We blitz."

"Your track is over there," says our guide, pointing to the next fairway over, where a terrific storm is raging.

"Oww, oww," they say.

"Your uniform's got a spot on it, Vodka."

"Well, you reek, Schnapps."

"Tell me your shots don't stink!"

"Dirt bag."

"Scheisskopf."

Incensed, the shorter of the two combatants smashes his opponent over the head with his club. Schnapps falls flat on his back in the manure. Vodka walks over and plants his boot on his throat, grinding him into the muck, laughing. Schnapps pokes a red-hot club into Vodka's eye. Vodka flops down in the flowerbed, howling.

"That's enough of you two," shouts the cart nymph, sharply intervening. "Be gone. You have no right to play this course." The two belligerents get up, the one rubbing his head, the other covering his eye with a muddy paw. They offer no apologies.

"Auf wiedersehen."

"Oww."

"Move along now," the nymph says.

"Where is Hole No. 13 tee box?" asks Vodka, rubbing his eye.

"Oww."

"Way, way back, over there," says the nymph, pointing.

"Naturlich."

"Da. We play black."

"Ja. We always play from the blacks."

"Well, be quick about it," says the nymph.

Understandably, my friends and I recoiled at this bizarre eruption and we're still hanging back. The two demons march off double-time toward the bitterly cold, stormy weather on the adjoining hole. I'm not sure they disappear, but the nymph addresses us and we quit watching their retreat.

"They're scratch golfers," she says. "They play a lot, but they never enjoy it. Irish Coffee, it's your shot." (This doesn't register at first.) "Irish Coffee! It's your shot…"

It takes me a second to come back to our trivial game of golf. "Can I pick up?"

"The drop area's over there," she says. "We'll play winter rules on this hole. You may clean and place your ball." I reluctantly return to the bunker to retrieve my ball.

The nymph, who we've learned is quite a stickler for rules, points to a rake lying nearby: "Weren't you a journalist, Irish Coffee?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Now's your chance to be a 'muckraker.'"

"Good God."

"But as a rules committee of one," she continues, "I'm ruling in your favor. This isn't a bunker. It's a mass grave. Your two shots are hereby erased. Groundskeeper error. Inadequate signage. Do a thorough job raking, then you may take a free drop."

"There goes your chance for a sandy par," says Wild Turkey.

"That would have been a shitty par, Irish Coffee," says Single Malt.

"Omigod," is all I can say.

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.