He Coulda Been a Contendah

I do not consider it my fault or Husband's fault that none of our Boys became the second-youngest winner of the Masters. This one is squarely on our offsprings' underachieving shoulders.

Now I freely admit that we were not exactly golfing role models. The closest I've ever come to the sport was a tricky course that included a windmill on the fifth hole (curse you, windmill) and a leering clown on the 18th. Husband has actually been on a golf course, on a beautiful spring day in his first job out of college when junior accountants had the choice of staying in the office and working or playing a round of golf. He chose the golf, but wore his work boots because it had rained the night before. The round did not go well.

We also did not join the country club, or subsidize golf lessons, or provide our sons any genetic material whatsoever that might have led to success as golfers.

But by golly, we made sure they had golf clubs. The clubs in this photo, to be exact.

Husband found them at a garage sale and paid a whopping $5 for the set, including the fuzzy turquoise sock that covered one of the...drivers? Woods? Who knows? Then Husband sent the clubs off to college with Boy#1 because everyone knows the kind of networking that happens on the golf course, and how hard could it be to golf?

Boy#1 brought the clubs home from college at the end of the year, so they were ready to go with Boy#2 when he was packing to leave for Big University, and this cycle continued through Boy#3 and Boy#4.  By the time all four had earned their bachelor's degrees, the golf clubs had traveled hundreds of miles, been moved a couple dozen times to different student apartments, and had been removed from the green bag exactly zero times.

Our Boys were not golfers.

The night before we moved the last kid out of the last undergraduate apartment the Boys agreed that these clubs had come to the end of the road with the QueenBee family. So that night, after their parents had gone to bed at the hotel, the Boys took the clubs and played a round of university-specific golf, the rules of which I did not understand. It involved hitting balls from locations that included the top of the parking garage, the statue on the quad, and other landmarks.

Obviously I did not want to know the rules of this game; actually knowing what the Boys were doing might have kept me awake, and I knew I would need to be well-rested the next day when I might have to convince the judge to lower their bail after they were arrested for HITTING A GOLF BALL ON UNIVERSITY PROPERTY. Sheesh.

Miraculously, though, they were not arrested and the next morning we left the set of clubs at the nearest Goodwill, where I'm pretty sure Jordan Spieth's parents  picked them up for $5. I mean, we were in Texas, Jordan Spieth lived in Texas, it could have happened.

See, Boys? See what happens when you take advantage of the opportunities presented you?

You could have had a brand new green jacket.