Life makes me Laff: Golf the Lafferty way

Ugh. I really dislike golf. I mean, nothing personal to anyone who likes it, but I just don't see the appeal. Especially on TV, it ranks up there with baseball on TV, if you ask me. But that is an entirely other blog posting.

Despite my disdain for the sport, I've never held it against Cory that he liked to play. Back in our newlywed days, when we were but wee babes, our apartment complex gave out passes for free golf every week. Ahhhh, good ol' The Crossings. Cory played with both our passes and with passes he finagled from non-golfing neighbors. With golf, you know, the more you play, the better you get. So, with Cory playing multiple times a week, he got pretty good.

Back to my not liking the sport. Obviously, I didn't play. At all. But one time, in our newlywed naivete, we had the deluded idea that it would be a good idea to go up to the driving range, and Cory could teach me how to hit some golf balls. The problem was, I'd never even held a real golf club before. So, we spent hours at the driving range. He tried me how to hit the ball. I tried to hit the ball. One ball. Seriously. No matter how many times I swung that stupid club, I never hit my one ball. Cory hit the entire rest of the bucket while I was still chopping, slicing, swinging wildly at that one darn ball. It did not make me happy. It was not a rosy picture of newlywed bliss.

Clearly golf is not my forte. I never went back to a driving range. And, once we moved out of the apartment complex, we stopped getting free golf passes, so Cory stopped going as often. Golf costs money, and as you know, Cory is not a fan of spending money. Even if it is for something he enjoys. Like golf. Suffice it to say, golf slowly petered out of our lives.

But, for Father's Day this year, I decided to bring back a little of the golf. There was still no way I was going to attempt the driving range, but I thought it would be fun to take Cory and the girls to try out mini golf. Mini golf is much more my speed. There is a very slim chance that you will entirely miss the ball when you swing at it. Plus, it involves rocks shaped like animals, windmills and teeny tiny bridges you get to walk across. Not that I've ever tried this, but I've heard heard that mini golf is super funny with a couple beers. Don't worry, we did not have beers on the day we took Molly and Charlotte, though that may have lessened my pain ...

Here's the thing, Charlotte is obsessed with balls. She loves them, and being the more active or daring of our two children, is always throwing and chasing them. So going into it, we knew mini golf was going to be, let's go with, an adventure. It took all of two minutes before Molly was crying. Apparently, she didn't appreciate being pelted on the hip with a golf ball by Charlotte. Not five minutes later, I was grimacing as my toe became the unfortunate recipient of a flying golf ball. I should've known to wear steel-toed boots instead of flip-flops! It was really all my fault.

Molly actually enjoyed the game. She understood the concept of hitting the ball to get it into the hole. She did constantly hold her golf club the wrong way, though. It's kind of like her shoes. I swear, you'd think she'd get her shoes on the right feet at least 50 percent of the time, but, no, she gets it wrong about 95 of the time. Same with the golf club. How she achieves that statistical improbability, I'll never know. Clearly, it's a sign of genius, right?

Occasionally, Charlotte would figure out to drop her ball into the hole. More often, she picked up our balls from the green and threw them whichever way she happened to be facing. As long as they weren't directed at me, I was happy. Molly would get a little more frustrated when her hard earned place on the green was uprooted by a 16-month-old with a ball fetish.

We made it to about hole 13 before calling it a day. All in all, it was a successful foray back into the world of golf. And, hey, maybe Charlotte had the right idea all along. If, long ago on that fateful day at the driving range, I'd picked up my ball thrown it instead of incessantly trying to hit it, I probably would've been much more successful. And happy. I get it, now. Redefine the game for the way you want to play, just like Charlotte. Hmmm ... clearly both children are geniuses.