The pros have moving day, we have weeding day. At the end of the season, the time comes to clean out the bag. The most important step in this process is the weeding out of the “bad” golf balls one has accumulated during the season. I don’t mean bad as in scuffed, dirty etc I mean bad as in: willful, disobedient, demonic.
My playing partners and I will choose an appropriate venue for this process, in our case a links style course that looks like three dozen bunkers dumped into a lake. If they have a fairway on this course we’ve never seen it. Nice greens though.
The process proceeds as follows. We begin on the first tee, clever eh? Anyway the rules are: if your ball goes astray you DO NOT go look for it. You may hit another, and another, or if pressed from behind take a drop (not likely, the members here play only in full moonlight). It is an effective method for determining a ball's loyalty. We got this idea from an account of the Salem Witch Trials. Works as good as can be expected.
As I write this it is dark outside and I’m imagining all those bad balls I hit today who for whatever willful, spiteful reason would not fly true. Tonight they lie in deep water, cold and alone. Well deserved I say. Or perhaps tucked up under the reeds, sitting in duck #@!$ waiting for some fool to come along and find them. I admit I have been that foolish but no more and I suggest that you avoid the temptation as well. So what if it’s a Pro V1, with barely a mark on it? It is a bad ball. It is a lost ball. If it were a good ball it would still be in it’s owner’s possession. So don’t pick it up my friend, leave it lie and you’ll be doing yourself a great favor.
And don’t assume that bad balls can be made good, trust me- they can’t. It’s in their genes, their core. They’ll never change- not even an intervention can change them.
How can you tell a bad ball from a good one before you buy them? I’m sorry, it hurts to tell you this but the sad truth is, you can’t. They all look alike.
We’ve approached the manufacturers about this, suggesting they identify these miscreants and apply an identifying mark to them (perhaps 666) but they say “Can’t be done.”. Actually they say “#@!$ off, idiot.” But the result is the same- there is no way to tell before-hand a bad ball from a good ball.
So, one must hit the damn thing first and then it becomes painfully clear whether a ball has satan as it’s mentor or not.
Satan is a bit of an overdo you say? How about this. Bad balls influence good balls but good balls cannot influence a bad ball.
How many times have you been playing what has appeared to you to be a good ball only to have it go suddenly, horribly bad, veering off on a tangent of it’s own, oblivious to your carefully executed shot and your impressive application of the skills you’ve honed over the years. You know full well it’s not you that has caused this errant flyer, no-- and up until then the ball you were playing had behaved just fine.
Think about it, you put that ball in your pocket at some point and while there, alongside another, a bad ball, the deed was done and your good ball turned to the dark side. Or perhaps during the night before your round there were whispers and suggestions, offers made. And during the round, trusting in your good ball, you were sabotaged as it succumbed to the temptations and left you in mid-round.
Well, it’s done, The bag is clean, the balls weeded and we have imbibed the last of the Famous Grouse. If the weather holds we’ll play again next week, hopefully with nothing but good balls in the bag. Unless……
Later