Throwing the game (golf)

With my Brewers cap on my head and baseball on my mind, I headed out the back door this morning intent on walking the golf course adjoining our lot. But a funny thing happened along the fairway.

On the first hole, I picked up a stray range ball nestled up against a tree. I planned to drop it off by the driving range, which like the rest of the course has been closed for weeks because of New Jersey’s restrictions over the COVID-19 outbreak. But something came over me as I approached the tee on hole No. 2, a par 3 about 170 yards long.

Let’s throw the ball and see how I do!

I got up on the tee box and tossed the ball as far as I could, straight down the middle of the fairway. Two more tosses, and I was on the green. Next up was a Par 4, and I thought, what the heck? Let’s give it a go!

My seventh “shot” actually went past the green a bit. On the way, I picked up a beat-up Top Flite off to the side. I dropped the range ball at the range and decided to keep going with the Top Flite as of No. 4, another par 3 bisected by a creek. I’d have to play carefully. A good “drive” off the elevated tee brought me close enough to the creek that I thought I could go for it.

The ball hit the rocks on the front lip of the creek and bounded across. The golf gods gaveth.

My next toss to the green hit an embankment, and the ball dropped back off the fringe. The golf gods tooketh.

This was beginning to feel like real golf, only better. I was in the fairways and had no trouble finding the ball. I was plotting the shortest routes to the green, not trying to figure out how to thread the needle through the trees. I also started pacing off my shots, which were surprisingly consistent at around 65 paces each, with the shortest at 60 and the longest, off an elevated tee, at 72.

My stride is essentially one yard, so I converted those totals into feet for baseball perspective. That longest toss was about 216 feet — not exactly Dave Parker to Gary Carter in the All-Star game, but good enough to hit the cut-off man.

I completed nine holes this morning, and my arm has not fallen off. With courses reopening Saturday, I have one day left to walk the course. Maybe tomorrow I’ll “play two” and throw for 18 holes.