Stand Tall Laddie!

The Place: Sandridge Golf Course (Lakes course) Vero Beach, FL
The Players: Two brothers and two playing partners
The State of Play: The younger brother struggles with inconsistency because he can only play once a week. The older brother struggles with inconsistency because he plays four times a week and expects he should play well everyday (with no warm-ups or exercise).

Both men are about to have a golf-changing experience that may change the course of their handicaps. For good.

Our scene begins on the 10th hole.

The younger brother has just gone out in 41 strokes (+5) for the front 9. Very poor for his caliber and capability of play, but lately that’s been about his average result. The older brother is half a minute from leaving and going home, having stopped keeping score on the 4th hole. F-bombs and shrieks of disbelief accompany him thus far for the round.

Standing on the #10 tee-box, the younger brother is trying to find the zone when suddenly time freezes!

From a riot of Needle Palms to the right of the tee-box, Old Tom Morris appears accompanied by plumes of mist (for effect). He looks a bit put off. He’s dressed in a cotton shirt, tweed jacket, tweed plus-fours, and a tam-o’-shanter cap. He holds a pipe, drags on it, then exhales tumbling puffs of smoke as he makes his way out of the mist. The younger brother is standing on the tee-box, his mouth hanging open. All he can think is, Man, that guy is going to sweat in this Florida heat! Old Tom is now essentially face-to-face with him. The First Gentleman Golfer reaches out his hand and gently closes the younger brother’s gaping mouth.

“I don’t sweat. I’m an apparition. Do you know who I am, lad?” he asks sternly with a lilting burr and a robust Scottish brogue.

With a tentative whisper, the younger brother manages, “Old-Tom-Morris.”

Old Tom looks around in unison with the younger brother, observing the older brother and the two playing partners, frozen like statues.

“Oh, no worries lad, they’ll be fine,” he says. “They’ll have no idea what happened. I’m just here to see you.”

The younger brother gulps, and an, Okay barely manages to escape his mouth.

“You already know what it is you’re doing wrong lad, dontcha’?”

The younger brother waggles his driver sheepishly. “Well, I feel like I’m not standing tall enough, and…”

Old Tom snatches the pipe from his mouth and releases a plume of smoke (for effect). The younger brother notes how wonderful it smells. The First Gentleman of Golf lets out a, “Fhuair mi e!” (“I’ve found it!” for our non-Gaelic speaking readers).

Old Tom practically throws his pipe back in his teeth and snatches the driver from the younger brother’s hands. He sets up in a stance and yells out, “Stand! Tall! Laddie!”

“It’s the only way to clear your arms and torso and hips, lad. Ya’ must stand tall to it!” the First Gentleman of Golf demands, and then makes an absolutely beautiful, whooshing swing. “Do ya’ see it?”

The younger brother simply nods his head, his mouth agape again.

“Dinnae make me come back here, lad,” he warns with stern eyes and tosses the driver back to the younger brother.

He catches it, and Old Tom is suddenly sucked back into the Needle Palm cluster along with a contrail of the mist (for effect).

The older brother and the two playing partners are instantly unfrozen, having no idea what has just occurred.

“You gonna’ hit that?” one of the playing partners chirps.

“I am,” the younger brother replies, “but I’m going to stand taller to the ball because I think, for a few rounds now, I’ve been bending too far to the ball, crowding my swing, and all.”

“Okay, Ben Hogan, whatever…” the second playing partner cracks.

The younger brother stands taller and instantly his practice swing feels magical—a feeling that has escaped him for a good deal of time now. He sets, swings and connects. The drive launches off the absolute dead center of the face and the ball flies with an absolutely perfect baby-draw pattern settling into the left center of the fairway at easily 295 yards.

“Oh-my-God! That was it!” he squeals. He does a quick demonstration for his older brother as he approaches the tee-box. “I was bending over the ball too much. I stood taller there and for the first time in a long time it felt like my authentic swing!”

“Okay,” the older brother replied, passing by the younger brother.

And then, more magic. The older brother stood before his tee’d ball. He was holding the Driver up, resting it against his shoulder. He was thinking (generally a very bad thing to do on the golf course). Then, he set-up to the ball and like the younger brother he stood taller to the ball!

Whhooosshh… the younger brother could tell, just from the pure sound, that the ball struck the center of the face and sure enough, as he watched it travel away into the air, he could see the exact same perfect baby-draw shot pattern and the ball landed about thirty yards short of the younger brother’s ball.

“No F***-ing way! It can’t be that!” the older brother said in disbelief.

“Believe it man!” the younger brother said. “I’m telling you, we were probably suffering through the same swing fault. Not standing tall enough.”

The round proceeded one flushed shot after another from both brothers now. The Older Brother became a machine and was dropping birdies and pars on every hole but two. The Younger Brother, now striking all the driving clubs and irons canned a birdie on 10, followed by 3 pars on 11, 12 & 13. Then, for some reason, (known to the Golfing gods, and maybe Old Tom Morris) his round devolved into a Greek Tragedy. He could no longer chip or putt and took a double-bogey on 14, followed by a bogey on 15, a bogey on 16, a bogey on 17 and a double-bogey on 18!

This is why GOLF spelled backwards is FLOG!

Older Brother closed out the round with a +2 (38) for the back-nine. Younger Brother closed out the back-nine +5 (41) and combining that with his front-nine 41 a less than stellar (82) to finish. So, the round really did change handicaps. The Younger Brother’s handicap went from a 7.6 to a 7.9, and the Older Brother’s handicap (of a poorly executed swing) got fixed and now he wants to play even more! Such is golf. Such is life.

Next week, Younger Brother will be relentlessly practicing his chipping and putting because a scratch handicap is still the goal (before leaving this mortal coil) and maybe hanging out with Old Tom Morris.

Might even take up smoking a pipe!

Fairways & Greens everybody.