You can't say I can't hit the broad side of a barn
LEDGER COLUMNIST

Tim GULLA LEDGER STAFF WRITER

To this day, my friends call it the "Luke Skywalker shot."

A legend in my own mind when it comes to my golfing abilities, it was just a few years ago that I faced a particularly challenging but all too frequent shot on the golf course.

My ball was buried deep in the woods and I had two options: Play it safe or play it stupid.

The safe play would have been to chip backwards into the fairway and take my lumps on the scorecard.

The stupid option was to attempt a shot of miraculous proportions - shaping the ball in a banana arc around a huge oak tree while making sure it never rose more than six feet off the ground.

Believing that I had such a shot in my never-ending arsenal, I calmly made a few practice swings and then unleashed a swing with a fury likely never before seen in such a gentleman's game.

The ball didn't cooperate with my grand plans, however, striking that oak tree dead square in the center. Instead of ricocheting right, left, up or down, the dimpled projectile headed right back toward my face.

With just split seconds to respond, I shielded my all-toprecious mug with the only thing I could think of in such an instant - the quarter inch-thick shaft of my golf club.

And just like Luke Skywalker deflecting laser beams with a light saber, I was able to deflect that golf ball and save the handsome features you can't help but notice in my photograph.

Golf is a funny game, or so my friends must have thought as they rolled on the ground in laughter.

Hackers like me always like to say the few good shots you might accidentally hit during a round are the ones that keep you coming back.

Deep down, though, I don't believe that's really the case.

What keeps me coming back is the chance that I'll get to see others make a complete fool of themselves and have stories to tell just like the one I told you.

Take my friend Al, for instance.

Towards the end of a horrible round on a Virginia golf course one day, Al proudly stepped up to the tee box on a difficult hole that required a long tee shot over a pond.

"Stand back and enjoy the drive," Al said in a loud, long, and drawn-out pronouncement of his intent.

Al then proceeded to unleash a swing of epic fury that sent his golf ball a mere two inches off the ground directly into a tee marker on the ladies' tee box some 20 yards ahead. The collision sent the ladies' tee marker, a thick block of wood painted red, about 50 yards into the air and into the middle of the pond.

His ball, by the way, was nowhere to be found but that tee marker bobbed merrily in the murky water. And yes, I did enjoy that drive.

Then there was a friend who parked his golf cart on the side of a steep slope. Yes, they do roll.

Then there was another friend who accidentally shanked a golf ball directly into his golf cart. Some fancy golf courses, by the way, have fancy Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) computer screens in their golf carts that don't take kindly to blunt force impacts.

Wet weather on the course can offer a wealth of embarrassing, but funny, moments, too. I once saw a club slip out of a golfer's wet hands - directly into the middle of a pond. That was at least $100 bucks down the drain.

He wasn't my friend but I still laughed at him nonetheless.

While I watched The Masters last weekend and generally tune into golf tournaments on television whenever time allows, the one thing that strikes me is how uncommon it is for the professional golfers to embarrass themselves.

Sure it happens every now and then, but it's rarely caught by the television cameras anymore since they only seem to focus on some guy named Tiger Woods. Surely it must happen at least once during every tournament by some pro not named Tiger and, by gum, I'd like to see it.

It would make for far more interesting television, I would think.

Who cares who won? I want to see someone injure themselves with a ball washer.

Plus, it would make hackers the world over feel a whole lot less self-conscious about the eventual embarrassment they're going to face.

During one of the last rounds of golf I played in Pennsylvania before I moved to the far more sunny and golf-friendly South, I was playing so poorly the phrase "couldn't hit the broad side of a barn" was quite appropriate.

That is, of course, until I actually did hit the broad side of a barn that was situated in the middle of my up-'tilthen favorite course.

I was forced to come up with a new phrase for a lack of skill and poor execution, but can't share it here.

But at least I had one more story to tell.