Golf Stories
Every golf hole has a story. Having played amateur golf for nearly three decades there is a lot to relish about and reminisce. Strange incidents have been happening on and off the golf course and I think it is high time I compile them for the delectation of fellow golfers.
I was playing golf in Lahore Gymkhana Golf Club one morning when I hit an OB(out of bound shot) and the ball sailed over the boundary fence on to Zafar Ali Road, running parallel to par three hole number 4, only to be ricocheted back to the middle of the fairway, close to the edge of the green. The course at the time was enclosed by a ‘see through’ fence instead of a solid brick wall, and the caddies waiting near the green, saw the ball hit the helmet of an auto bike rider and bounce back on to the course. This reminded me of a joke when a golfer’s OB hit the tyre of a passing bus and ricocheted back to the course, prompting his partner to ask as to how he had managed such a precision shot? The golfer cheerfully replied “you only need to know exact timings of the bus”.
I was at tee number 6, a 340 yards par 4 hole, where we have to go over the tree tops with a high trajectory drive. I hit a bad shot that just crossed the tall trees but fell way short of the green. A well connected but slightly wayward fairway shot with 5 wood landed in a deep sand bunker on the side of the elevated green. From a distance of slightly under 200 yards I could see a number of crows hovering over the deep bunker, producing somewhat agitating sounds. On getting closer I spotted a blackish object looking like a stick lying on the sand. I approached the bunker with a sand wedge and saw a bizarre picture; a reptile nearly 4 feet in length chasing a frog, the frog trying to enter a dead end hole in the bunker wall and the crows making disturbed sounds seeing the eminent danger. Without a second thought I hit the snake with the club killing it instantly. Our golf course in those days was full of undergrowth infested with variety of vermin and snakes. Things have improved now with trimmed grass replacing the wild underbrush.
Hole number 9, a 180 yards par three, has a lake extending from the tee right up to the green, while the fairway is a narrow walking strip along the water reservoir on one side and a low fence marking OB limits on the other. The tee shot must land on the green otherwise the ball is lost in the water and for most amateur golfers crossing this lake has become a jinx of sorts, while it is a lucrative business for the person who is assigned the contract for salvaging the balls. To avoid the incessant loss of the costly golf balls some of us use floaters, the balls that do not sink and can be retrieved from the water in case they land there. The other day I hit a powerful drive in the direction of the pin to receive accolades from my four ball but the ball hit a kite flying over the lake and fell in the ‘middle of nowhere’, from where its recovery was a Herculean job as even the best of the telescopic ball retrievers can’t extend beyond a certain length.
Long time ago my approach shot on a par 4 hole took too much height and fell over the bifurcated stem of a tall dead branchless tree. I thought it would have fallen to the ground and searched for the ball but it was nowhere to be seen. Some greens keepers working nearby told me that the ball had got stuck up in the fork of the stem at the top and never came down. It sounded unbelievable but one of the gardeners climbed up and fetched the ball. When I narrated this story to my friends in the club house, I was told that a professional golfer from the club lost his expensive ball which was taken by a kite to its nest. The man climbed the tree to reach the nest which, to his surprise, was a treasure trove of 16 golf balls. What a cache?
I was doing reasonably well during a match when my approach shot on a par 5 dog leg hole fell into a newly laid water course short of the green, only to bounce off a large pebble on the side of the hazard. It landed near the pin and I was able to score a regulation par. You can rightly call this game ‘the holes of luck’.
We were waiting on a par 5 tee for the flight ahead of us to get out of our driving range but the wait was getting agonizingly long. Suddenly we noticed an object lying flat on the fairway grass. From a distance we were trying to work out if it was a golfer or his bag, when we saw a caddie whizz past us crying and running in the opposite direction. He was headed towards the water reservoir next to the tube well to ward off a honey bee attack. The object lying in the fairway at a distance of nearly 300 yards was a senior golfer who was the actual victim of the bees who attacked him when his ball hit their hive. He was seriously injured, shifted to the hospital in a critical condition but thankfully survived after treatment.
A British era Christian cemetery lies next to Lahore Gymkhana Golf Course. It used to have a very low boundary wall, now raised to well over six feet, over which the caddies could jump across to fetch the ball that would occasionally overshoot into the necropolis. This wall is next to the 4 green on one side while at the right angle it is adjacent to the 16 tee. A few years ago a three some flight reached the tee on a hot summer afternoon and one of them drove his tee shot. There was a cheer of applause from the cemetery end acclaiming the drive, to which the three golfers looked back to find two young men jumping off the wall with fire arms in their hands and robbing them of their cash and valuables. The club authorities responded to this freakish incident by raising the boundary wall to safety height and establishing guard/observation posts at strategic points.
Note: These are the incidents that I experienced in person or I am privy to them through my golfing friends. I will appreciate if someone likes to share such happenings with me which I would happily add to my blog.
Written by Dr. Shahid Qayyum
The author is a dental surgeon and can be reached at dsq006@gmail.com
