Oh my gosh! Fore!

So I don't golf.

Well, I have hit the occasional royal blue golf ball into a clowns mouth... or over the castle moat but other than that I just have never played.  Of course now I run into people and they assume I golf and are quite surprised when I tell them, "Nope. Never golfed a game in my life."  They stop talking to me.

Well, that is not going to cut it any longer, people will have questions, want advice, want to talk in golf lingo like 'slice', 'shankopotomus', 'divot',  and stuff.  I will need to know how to respond.  So David has been teaching me.  Starting from the basics... my swing

The first time I wound up, swung the club up and back, stepped out of the batters box with my left foot forward,  and SWOOSH!  Missed completely.  Hmm.  Kinda embarrassing.  I put my hand up shadowing my eyes pretending to see where the ball went.  I tried to joke it away.

"Ok... lets start from the real beginning. We will start with your grip." David said patiently.  So we did.  Eventually, I hit numerous balls into the net in the driving range and then we went out along side of the course to actually get  a little distance.  It never did go very far... at first.  We hit away from the driving range and then back towards it.  David kept saying "good.. good.. you are doing better. Don't worry, you will not even get it close to the net."  Well... one swing connected just right and it went over the net, over the driving range, off the roof, and bounced over into the putting area near the 1st and 9th holes!  I yelled, "Oh my gosh! I am so sorry!"  David smiled and said "Baby?  It's 'FORE!'"   I probably narrowly missed bouncing it off of some retirees head.  Good grief just what we need.

It is supposed to be a peaceful game and the fairways and greens of nearly any course make it seem so idyllic.  However, there is sometimes incidents of not so hidden violence and danger at golf courses. There are a couple of holes here where you can not see at the other end so there are large bells rigged up.  People ring the bell and count to 30 before they hit it. That gives people warning to cover their noggins.  We just love hearing that bell ringing off and on all day long.  But still there is an undercurrent of rage floating around out there.

People can get very frustrated either with their game...

their clubs,

the weather, 

or the course. 

I am thinking that last guy might have had to replace some kind of divot thingy 

after he was done with this tantrum.

Ranch Hills is no exception.  We have already had a little fight here on this course and I am embarrassed to say I know one of the participants very well.   I managed to catch a picture of these two pugelists and I think when you see them you can probably guess the outcome of this struggle.

   

It wasn't pretty.

Enough of the call of the wild.  She had a job and she did it.  Geese can not be on golf courses and dogs need jobs.   Just ask my hero Cesar Milan and those New Skete Monks. (They look kinda Jedi Knight-like don't they?)

They ROCK!  And they pretty much say the same things.  I dunno what they think about goslings but I am sure they would understand the whole animal behavior thing about allowing geese to remain in an area.  They tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on and so on.  Like those old shampoo commercials...  speaking of commercials.  This is still one of my favorite golf commercials:

POST SCRIPT:

I found this when I was looking for that commercial with Tiger above... just could not pass it up and had to add it here: