I was a pretty poor golfer, never rising above mediocrity in the year I tried the game, but next to Henry Crawley I was Tiger Woods. Henry had an impressive swing and was really keen so that at first glance one might be forgiven for thinking he was at least a reasonable golfer but you’d be spectacularly wrong if you thought so because Henry was just plain terrible at golf. He never let it get him down and plugged away manfully at the game but ultimately futilely, week after week. You might say he loved the game but the game did not love him.
Henry drove a Ford Ranchero truck and he was in the habit of dumping any balls which he had on him at the end of a round of golf, on the dashboard. The truck always stood outside in the sun so those rather battered and cut balls were subjected to day-long UV punishment as well as what he had done to them with his clubs. After weeks of this treatment, most of those balls were unplayable but that mattered little to Henry as he seldom hit any ball much anyway. Came the day when we were having a friendly round of something like golf and we had slashed and cursed our way to the 5th tee. Colin Pankhurst was playing along with Crawley and me, having his usual good round and he smacked a beauty right down the middle of the fairway. I fluffed my drive as usual but actually made it onto the fairway – quite good for me. Then Crawley teed up one of his “freshly baked” dashboard balls and took a swing at it.
Where he would normally come down a foot behind the ball and plough up the tee or hit a fresh air to swing himself clean off his feet, he actually HIT the ball. It made a dull, thwacking sound as he connected and we were amazed to see what we thought was his ball heading for the fairway. But it was quickly apparent that there was something radically wrong with that “ball” as it seemed to have developed wings and was making a flapping sound as it flew. Then, something caught my eye on the tee where Henry was crowing with delight – what looked like a giant spider was running about behind Crawley and looking threatening. Closer inspection caused the penny to drop – what we were watching was a coverless golf ball, (The cover had gone on alone down the fairway), which was busily unraveling as Henry had cut right into the elastic with his iron. Any arachnophobe would have recoiled at the sight of that ball believe me, as it looked for all the world like a fat, hyperactive spider.
After Colin and I had ceased rolling helplessly about in the grass laughing our heads off, an argument erupted. We demanded that Henry hit another ball but he refused and was keen to play the cover as it was probably the furthest he had ever hit a golf “ball”. He couldn’t play the spider as it had by now run out of steam and elastic and was jerking spasmodically on the tee. We finally convinced him that the rules required him to play another ball and he eventually very reluctantly went off for three. Why he had to dispute the ruling I can’t imagine because, let’s face it, it matters little whether you score 83 or 86 on nine holes. It’s a bloody awful score no matter how you look at it.
Oh by the way, don’t you also find it amusing that Crawley should have created a “Creepy-Crawly” with his golf club?
This one had me falling off my chair laughing!!!