We managed ot make it to the club in time to make our scheduled tee time, which in itself was a bit of a miracle. I knew right off though that I was in for a bad day. My first drive pulled left and ended up in the rough on a hole that is a straight shot to the green only about two hundred yards off. Short hole, straight shot, no problem. Right!
By the ime we were approaching the fifteenth I was hearing gripes about how 'some of us had spent most of the day chasing his ball through the rough' so the game was getting rather long. I wasn't alone in that regard, Steven was having a 'rough' go of it as well.
The fifteenth was about a three hundred fifty yard hole with a sharp dogleg to the right. Naturally my drive pulled sharply to the left and this time I ended up in the woods. I assure you that I can play the game, this was simply a bad day, my drives all tended to pull left for some reason. This made sixth hole where my drive ended up off the fairway. I was almost ready to call it a day, but I shouldered my bag and trudged off after my stray ball. About four strokes later when I finally had the ball on the fairway about thirty yards off the green I heard one of the other's cells go off. We had agreed to turn the damn things off so I was a tad annoyed.
Once I finished the hole at six over I suggested that we call it a day since it was getting late and I was getting tired and Steve had plans with Cynthia this afternoon and Nate was home alone and...and...and (getting the picture?)
The others just looked at each other and in chorus said, "Nah, let finish up, its only three holes." Then my smartass son, Daniel, said' "Besides its not often we get to watch you play in the rough all day!" Laugh now, little buddy. Just wait!
At this point my game seemed to improve. The last three holes went smoothly. Two birdies and a par on the final three. Finally I found my game. A bit late but...
After tallying up our cards and stowing our clubs in the car I was ready to head home. The others however were heading toward the clubhouse. Naturally I followed along since we all came together in David's car. Once we enterd the clubhouse I started to become suspicious. Allan suggested that we relax over a couple drinks. Now my son in law has many flaws, but a proclivity toward drink is not among them. He's usually the one begging off on the drinks and talking us into heading straight home. I was in no position to argue and the others readily agreed to Allan's suggestion.
After the obligatory wise cracks about my game, now keep in mind this was our first full round of the season and none of us had played a particulary good game, and the public announcement that I had broken the club record for drives into the rough on a single round. (Not true I'm sure) we decided to head out.
As we approached the house I noticed the abundance of automobiles in the drive. The men had all arrived separately so naturally all their cars were all there with the exception of David's of course as we were in that one. But there were an additional four cars there, and of course I recognised them all. "Now what is the family up to?" I thought.
We located the rest of the Raven clan in the backyard. Everyone was present and accounted for, my four with spouses and their eight children. The devil himself stood alone off to the side beaming with pride, shovel in hand. He claimed that he had only asked Aaron to come over to help him out with the planting. That single call resulted in the whole clan dropping whatever they had in mind to do in order to get the old man's gardening done. This of course explained the sudden change in tone during the final three holes and Allan's insistance on stopping for a couple.
Families can indeed be deviously evil at times.
