Waiting List

John is in his seventies - at least.  Back trouble, or so he claims when he has a bad golf shot, cancer and a dickey heart.

We golf together once a week because we play similar golf, share an outlook on life - what we have left of it – have like health problems and an illogical belief towards immortality; in my case in spite of a medical man who, when he discovered my condition, said:

“you may get a couple more years of life playing golf once a week than would be the case if we tried to do anything about it.”

Me, someone we met on the course and John

I’m nearer 91 than 90 but we manage with a buggy, although I tend towards falling over when I am  striking the ball - sometimes even when I am just standing still! We rarely lose a ball because distance is something you lose with age and we can still see them after we have played our shots.

“I’ve applied for a locker”: this was John in the changing room looking down the row of lockers.

“So?”

“There aren’t any vacant; they have put me on the waiting list.”

Golfers are invariably optimists – at least before they start to play.

Booking to play a week in advance always seems to me to be tempting fate: agreeing to go on a waiting list is really pushing it.

    

We play on Tuesday mornings which is 'Ladies Day' at our Club, Wareham. Normal male golfers rarely play on Ladies Day because few male golfers, even in these supposedly enlightened days, will acknowledge that ladies should have precedence - or even be there at all. The easiest way to accommodate such a view is not to be there on Ladies Day.

 John and I are quite happy to play behind the ladies because it means, at our pace, it is like having the course to ourselves.  

All the ladies are our friends.

For those I haven't been in touch with for some time, I haven't yet reached the following situation - quite! As most of you will not be in the first bloom of youth, I trust you are also still playing.