It was a nice Sunday morning, not too hot, and not raining, great day for sleeping in.. unless if you're an avid golfer, in which case you're gonna be wishing that you're at the first tee, driver in hand. So there we were on that Sunday morning, my friends Johnson, Nelson and myself. Johnson's just starting out but he's doing very well, Nelson is quite a decent player, and me.. well these pages have amply documented my playing abilities or lack thereof, but since we're just out there to have fun, it was a WONDERFUL start to the day. 

We started playing our usual way (left, right,  oops, off the tree into the bunker) but were generally having a good time. Johnson was topping the ball off the tee a few times (with us yelling encouragement for the ball not to make it past the red tees), but I was having my own topping problems with my iron shots from the fairway and rough, and after a few holes and yet another horizontal 7 iron shot who zinged to the left for a mere 20 meters, I said without thinking "My God, we've got more toppings today than a Pizza Hut"). The other guys thought that was a pretty funny line and we had a good laugh over that one. Then when somebody (I forgot who) topped the ball again, we would say "Wah really another topping for the Pizza !!" and have a good laugh..

That's when the trouble started. I started to hear the words "More toppings than a pizza hut" on my backswing. On my pitches, and when it made me almost giggle when I was standing over my putt, that's when I knew that my brain has been severely affected. And to top it off, pardon the pun, Nelson then told this funny/tragic story about how one of his friends actually knocked a sleeping owl out of a tree with his golf ball. After that images of unconscious owls falling out of trees filled my head on every fairway. And then I hit Johnson's golf ball by mistake. He returned the favor by hitting MY golf ball into a bunker.  The round basically devolved into one big laughfest. We had fun but we sure were glad nobody's flling any scorecards that day. 

Moral of the story, when you play a round, focus, focus, focus. And don't forget to focus. We were not playing for anything on that day, but if you were playing for money, keep the jokes and thoughts to non golf related subjects. Why ? Because your brain is listening.  You know how if somebody say "Don't think of Pink Elephants !", all you can think about are Pink Elephants ? Well, don't tell your partner "Watch out for that water", because chances are, he WILL slice it into the drink. Don't say "Ohhh bunker shot, hard one" , because he WILL take six whacks to get it out. This is what Rule 8 of the USGA offical rules means when they say you cannot give advice. More bad than good things can happen. And don't forget that your flight mate has a whole array of potentially deadly metal-tipped weapons with which to do various acts of physical violence. In the case of really bad advice, he might feel compelled to wrap his putter around the nearest tree, or if you're not careful, your neck :)