By Brian Sumner

GolfWRX Contributor

I’ve never completely understood the quote Forrest Gump made famous, “Life is like a box of chocolates,you never know what you’re going to get.”  Most of the boxes of chocolates I’ve gotten have a blueprint inside outlining what’s what.  However, there really isn’t a diagram that lets you know what to expect when you show up at a golf course as a single.  I’ve never minded being paired up with others, but you truly never know what you’re going to get.  Sometimes it can be an adventure.

My wife’s family was having a reunion in Daytona Beach, Florida and one morning, I got an official spousal reprieve from the in-laws to go play golf.  When I arrived at the course it seemed busy for a Wednesday, but I didn’t notice anything much out of the ordinary.  The guy in the pro shop arranged for me to be paired up with a twosome who was scheduled to tee off about an hour later.  I got some range balls and headed to see if I could dig out something that might be a semi-repeatable swing as not to embarrass myself in front of total strangers.

I first noticed how quiet it was when I left the pro shop.  Sure a golf course is out in nature and people try to avoid making loud noises out of respect for the other players, but it was REALLY quiet.  The putting green was full and so was the driving range, but the only sound that could be heard was the rhythmic thwack of range balls being struck.  At first it was quite eerie, but then I noticed all the rapid fire hand gestures and slowly realized that no one around me was talking…instead they were all using sign language.  I spoke to one of the rangers who confirmed for me that nearly every one of the patrons were there to play a practice round for what he described as “the big deaf tournament” they were hosting.

I’ve had quite some experience with the deaf community.  My college had an extensive program for hearing impaired students.  In fact, one of my teammates on the college golf team was hearing impaired and during my junior year I also dated a girl who was also deaf.

I wasn’t at all shocked when the two guys I was paired with couldn’t hear a bit.  However, they were surprised when they signed something to me and I feebly tried to sign something back to them. Because of my college experiences, I could actually communicate with them a little, but I was having a really hard time recalling many of the words and phrases that had once been fairly familiar to me.  It turned out that the only things that came immediately to mind were the letters of the alphabet (finger spelling) and a bunch of slang curse words that I’d learned.  It didn’t really seem appropriate to start firing those off this early in our relationship, so I stuck with finger spelling.

I explained to my playing partners, who we’ll call James and Dave, as best I could that I did know a little sign language, but only enough to get by (barely).  Sometimes during the round I would start finger spelling something and they would nod as patiently as they could when they knew what I was trying to say.  As you might expect, they were both excellent at reading lips, but quickly realized that I was horrible at it.  If we needed to have any kind of an extended conversation they often ended up writing in a small notebook that one of them had brought to make course notes for the tournament.

About two holes into the round I found that the curse words I remembered were going to be useful more useful than I expected.  Dave snap hooked his drive into a hazard.  He immediately threw down his club and started signing off several words, many were ones that I remembered as being of the cursing variety.  While I didn’t recognize every word of the sentence, I did get the gist of its meaning which caused me to start laughing.  When Dave noticed, I think he thought I was making fun of his tee shot and he looked more than a little ticked off.  I tried to explain what I had found funny, and he seemed to calm down a little, but I wasn’t entirely sure that he was convinced.

Overall, the round was a pleasant one.  James was clearly the better of the two golfers.  While Dave seemed to be struggling both with his swing and his temper, it was obvious that he was more than capable of posting decent scores.  Although they genuinely seemed impressed that I had taken the time in my life to learn some sign language, it was obvious that I hadn’t retained much of it.  They didn’t go out of their way to talk to me, but I suspect that some of that was because dummying down the translation to my remedial level was tedious and more than a little annoying.  Imagine someone was trying to talk to you, spelling out what they wanted to say, one letter of the alphabet at a time and you may begin to understand.  They weren’t at all rude about it, but I still had a slight feeling of isolation.  This gave me an opportunity to focus on my game a little more, but since the course was packed and we were waiting a lot I also started finding other ways to entertain myself.

Like with my college teammate, I found that some elements of normal golf etiquette were things I didn’t have to worry about.  For instance, I didn’t have to be very concerned with making noise during their swing.  After I hit I could put my club away as loudly as I wanted.  Sometimes I would go ahead and kick off the parking brake on the golf cart while they were hitting just because I could.  Making loud noises became somewhat of a game for me.  I began doing it just to see how loud I could make it.  However, I feel inclined to point out that I was always careful not to be in their line of sight when I performed some of these actions that would make noise.

It was on No. 16 when Dave lost his temper and wanted to take a swing at me for doing something that probably saved him from getting maimed.

The sixteenth hole is a long par five with a water hazard that runs up the right side nearly all the way to the green.  Dave’s tee shot skirted the edge of the hazard bouncing on the bank a few times before nose diving down toward the water.  I had been first to tee off, but James still had to hit.  From my cart, I had a beat on Dave’s ball so as soon as James hit I took off for the spot where I thought Dave’s ball had entered the hazard.

The weeds along the edge of the pond were a little high, but not so high that I didn’t see what I suspected to be Dave’s golf ball resting in the edge of the hazard.  However, my attention wasn’t focused on the golf ball.  My eyes were locked on the four and a half foot alligator half submerged in the water about thirty feet where I parked the cart.

I’m from the mountains of North Carolina, so I’m not used to seeing alligators anywhere, much less on a golf course.  I don’t know very much about them except what little I learned while watching Steve Irwin on “The Crocodile Hunter.”  I had to do a double check to make sure what I was seeing was real, but it was completely lost on me how Dave and James parked their cart between me and the gator without seeing him at all.  I’ve heard that when you lose one of your senses that the sensitivity of the others becomes more heightened to make up for the loss.  Obviously, Dave and James had amazing senses of smell, taste, and touch because their vision was absolutely horrid.

Dave, angry with his tee shot, got out of the cart, viciously jerked a club from his bag and started toward the hazard intent on getting his ball back.  In shock, I realized that he had still not noticing that it rested about ten feet from Godzilla.  Seeing that Dave had found his ball, but also somehow not seeing the gator, James headed back to the cart and took a seat.

I stood frozen for a moment not believing what was happening until the alligator’s hiss brought me from my fugue and sparked me into action.  My first instinct was to yell at Dave to warn him.  “Dude, there’s a gator over there!”  Then I remembered that I could yell until Armageddon came and Dave wouldn’t have heard me.  I started frantically waving my arms and jumping up and down (I’m actually kind of embarrassed to admit the jumping up and down part).  James looked at me confused and Dave, who was about five feet from his ball by now, remained in his own unhappy little world.

I had been eating an apple as I had driven up to “Lake Placid” and was a little surprised to look down and find that it was still in my hand.  It had been a pretty tasty apple, but out of instinct I immediately drew back and chucked the apple in Dave’s direction.  Probably fueled by adrenaline, the throw had a little more zip on it than I had intended.  Despite the speed at which the apple was traveling, time seemed to slow while it was in the air.  I watched with a certain sense of satisfaction as the apple struck Dave first on the top of the shoulder then glancing off and hitting him squarely in the ear.  In my mind I celebrated.  I’m sure I had a goofy smile on my face when Dave, confused, whipped his head around to look at me.  He looked down at the apple lying near his feet reached up with his hand and wiped the apple juice from his ear, then looked back at me again.  I’m not sure what I had expected would happen next, but I was shocked when Dave’s confused visage darkened into an angry scowl and he started toward me like he wanted to fight.  He was mouthing something I didn’t understand (I suck at reading lips) and pointing at me with the hand that didn’t hold the golf club.

While I wouldn’t classify myself as a “lover” I definitely am not a “fighter” either.  To avoid any ugliness, I tried pointing at the alligator.  However, Dave was intent on being ticked off and didn’t seem concerned in the least with where I was pointing.

I quickly began to regret my decision.  I had wasted a rather tasty Fuji apple and was about to get into a fight on a golf course for saving a guy from getting kneecapped by an alligator.  Granted, a 4.5 foot alligator probably wouldn’t have killed him, but he would’ve definitely walked with a limp for awhile.  Immediate physical damage and potential rehabilitation aside, I’m sure alligator mouths aren’t the most sterile of environments, so there was probably the risk of some kind of exotic infection as well.  Getting a love bite from an alligator would in all probability fall into the category of an emotionally traumatic event.  Dave would need some therapy too.  Of course, as he stalked toward me I came to the conclusion that he already wasn’t one of the more stable people I’d ever encountered.

Still trying to avoid a throw down I calmly but emphatically gestured toward the gator again.  This time something made Dave look where I was pointing.  At first he still didn’t seem to see anything, but when his eyes focused on the gator I could actually see the color drain from his face.  His eyes went buggy and were nearly as large as his open mouth which had gone slack.  For a moment I thought he might pass out, but to my relief, he didn’t.  He was a fairly good sized fellow and I didn’t relish the idea of helping James carry him to the cart.

Speaking of James, he had stood up uncertainly from the cart apparently trying to decide whether to intervene in the impending melee.  Now he looked over in the direction where I pointed and literally went airborne in his astonishment.  It was an uncoordinated movement that, had he made a sound would have probably been a high pitched “yip”.

Eventually Dave recovered and we finished our round.  He didn’t retrieve the ball, though.  Dave never apologized to me for his aggressive nature and to be honest, he didn’t need to.  I could tell he was both appreciative of what I had done and embarrassed with how he acted.  To be honest, I’d had some fun at his and James expense even if he didn’t know that I’d done it and I was regretting that myself.  After the round was over I awkwardly shook hands with both of them and wished them the best of luck in their tournament and never saw them again.

Since then I’ve been paired up with strangers on numerous occasions.  More often than not my playing partners are cordial and fun to be around.  Golfers as a whole are good people.  However, there have been times where I’ve found myself paired up with someone who is exceptionally chatty or who wants to give me a lesson.  During those times I find myself longing for a nice quiet round with Dave and James.  Occasionally, the pairing has been bad enough that I even wish for a four and a half foot alligator to intervene.

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