By Jim Corbett

You know, there are so many times when we are playing golf that we learn very important lessons about life. Sometimes we need to really be on the lookout for these situations and sometimes they jump out and make themselves unmistakably known. Not too long ago I was playing a round of golf and one of those “unmistakably known” events occurred.

I was having a decent round, hitting the ball pretty well, sinking some fairly respectable putts and getting what you might call, “more than my regular share of pars.” Then I came to a pretty formidable par-5, about 500 yards, dog-leg left, with a narrow fairway that fell off on the left side down a steep hill to some woods below. The long, slender green was protected by a couple of gaping bunkers which made for a very tricky approach shot. Believe it or not, I hit a pair of terrific shots that left me lying pin-high in two but my second shot had leaked a bit to the left.

As I approached my ball I could see that it had landed on a plateau about 15 feet below the green and roughly 20 feet off. To add a little spice to the situation, directly in between me and the green was one of those afore-mentioned, gaping traps, and since this green was so “slender,” the pin was set very close to the edge of the hill. In order to get close for a birdie, I knew it was going to take a perfect shot. I’d have to loft it up over the trap, but land it softly right at the top of the hill so it wouldn’t run too far by the cup.

My lie was pretty good; I was on some fluffy grass and I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble getting the club under it to loft it up in the air. I walked back and forth a few times gauging the distance from my ball to the landing site and when I felt like I had it right I set up at my ball.

In my mind I envisioned a nice little turn, a short back swing, a left arm that stayed straight through the swing and a head that didn’t even peek up a teeny-tiny bit. I had lined myself up properly and I had my club face opened up to give me the extra loft I was going to need to drop it straight down on the target.

All systems were go and the moment of truth was at hand. I launched the shot and sensed the sweet feel of perfect contact. I followed through and as I did so I looked up to see the ball arcing perfectly for the promised land. It soared high and beautiful, like a pure white dove against the azure sky. I watched in amazement to think that I had rendered a thing of such beauty.

My mind’s eye projected me a short distance into the future when I would experience the joy of recording the birdie on my card. I would surely be the envy of all my friends, to birdie a hole such as this one. Tales would be told throughout my life and beyond, songs might even be written about the event, there was really no telling how far the snowball of folklore would carry this day.

I focused once again on the present as the ball floated lightly downward and I admired how the trajectory of the ball was precisely where I had envisioned it. If I had plotted it out with the instruments of a NASA engineer I couldn’t have placed the ball on a more perfect path. Then it happened.

The ball disappeared for a brief moment over the edge of the hill, out of my eye sight, presumably to roll the few feet left to bring it to the brim of the cup, but then like a demon in some third rate horror story, it re-appeared! There was a hollow, metallic thud and the ball bounced back up in the air and began to travel back in the direction of where I was standing. My perfect shot, my once in a lifetime, put it all together, never gonna happen again, best effort ever shot had hit a sprinkler head and was now lofting in the opposite direction than it had originally been traveling and than I had originally intended. And the bad news was it didn’t look like it had enough steam to get over that bunker.

I looked on in horror as the ball sputtered and coughed and slowly gave up the ghost. My life seemed to pass before my eyes (a numbing experience that took forever, especially the part about the things I did in high school). And then, my worst fears were confirmed, the soft landing that I had hoped for up on the edge of the green sadly took place right in the middle of the sand.

Well, to make a sad story even sadder, after two attempts to get out of the trap left me with a very long putt, I ended up carding a double bogey. The birdie that I sweetly anticipated had faded like a memory of lost love.

How, in a universe that makes any sense, can something like this happen? The answer is simple: golf and life are a lot alike. Sometimes, even when you do everything that you are supposed to do, and you do it perfectly, and you expect to be rewarded with greatness, you can end up the butt of some colossal cosmic joke. (Actually, this does not only apply to golf and life, anyone who has tried to figure out Windows 95 has probably had a similar experience.)

The thing to remember is to not let it get you down. I’ve had other birdies since then, maybe not as spectacular as “the one that got away,” but gratifying none the less. And we still have to play our best, at golf and at life, so that when those opportunities present themselves, we are ready to step up and hit our best shot.