Sun Nov 26 Part I

The Golfing Journey of Sparky Mullins

What in the world is that you ask. What it is my fellow golfers, is an attempt by me to write a short story to possibly slightly entertain myself and possibly slightly entertain a reader or two. It is likely possible that it is a total waste of my time and anyone who reads it, but it is what it is.

I once heard Neil Young describe one of his songs by saying, "It starts out real slow then fizzles out altogether." That could be an accurate description of my story as all I have is an idea, a possible ending, and new thoughts daily. I am going to make it up as I go, a chapter a week till it's over. Just like our golf games, it is best not to have too high of expectations. 

The story begins after a look at Friday's play.

Friday Results

A sharp, brisk wind held our number down to 7 players on Friday. Scott breaks a 2-2 tie of the events by winning the CTP.

Tom had several reasons why he could not play today.

Although one team spent a lot of their time wandering around,

they were able to celebrate 7 birdies, easing the pain considerably.

My small bottle lasted all 7 shots. Jeff's larger bottle did not last the round.

The Golfing Journey of Sparky Mullins 

                                 Chapter 1

The alarm startled him from a deep sleep. Friday 6:00 am. He reaches over in an attempt to hit the snooze button. He misses slightly left, just like the putt he had been dreaming about when awakened by the buzzer. "Come on man, get up", he tells himself, "Got to get to the range before work."

Meet Melvin Mullins. Nearing his 40th birthday, Mel (as he prefers to be called) is a golf fanatic that has been divorced for some time now (see golf fanatic). He lives in his apartment in Wayland, just west of Boston. He works at Freddy's Auto Parts, as he has since he was 17. He has moved up the ladder to manager by now, about as high as that ladder will go. He is okay with that however, as his vision of the future has never gone further than the coming weekend, as it has been since his teenage years. He has always been content working at Freddy's, the people, the pace, the regular customers and such. 

About the only thing that Mel doesn't like about Freddy's (well, the pay could be better) is that this is where he was branded with a nickname. Details have long since been muddled by time, but apparently, they included a spark plug company calendar and Miss July. His friends have called him Sparky ever since. After all, what are friends for?  

Let's get back to Sparky the golfer. He plays at Lone Wolf Golf Club, fairly near to where he lives. It is a blue-collar sort of place, hence the 'Golf Club' instead of 'Country Club' name. He plays with a regular group every weekend. His group calls themselves the 'Wolfpack'. They even have their own hats printed up to show their solidarity. He would like to play more, but his work schedule coupled with New England weather has pretty much relegated him to a weekend warrior.

Sparky is in the upper half of the group talent wise. His 11 handicap usually puts him in the low to mid 80's. Occasionally he dips in the high 70's. His lowest score, a day he remembers as magical, was a tidy 38-38 76. He has sort of been stuck at this current level for a little while now. His frustration is starting to affect him mentally. He knows, like all golfers, that playing more often is the remedy. Unfortunately, the job thing will always be a deterrent. That is why he tries to hit the range during the week when possible, but it is just not the same as competition.

This brings us to the early Friday practice session. Sparky has an in-club match-play show down Saturday with Simon Graham. Known as 'Sandy Simon' to most club members, Simon is universally despised for always shooting in the 70's in club events while carrying a 13 handicap. Other than the club events when he has to post his score, he only turns in rounds played with his wife on the weekends. Curiously, he tends to shoot closer to 90 than the 70's on these occasions.

Sparky desperately wants to win this match as the winner goes to the finals of the B-flight match-play tournament. He is not happy knowing he has to give this sandbagger 2 strokes and it's the reason he has interrupted his sleep to do all he can to overcome, in his mind, an unfair situation.

The practice session is not going well. He has hit most of his clubs with no satisfactory results when he is down to just a few balls left from his basket. A 9-iron is in his hands when, his patience and attitude near zero, he starts swinging wildly just to finish. On his next to last ball, he nearly loses his balance at the top of his swing. Instead of stopping completely, he hesitates at the top until his feet gather themselves and finishes his swing.

And then it happened.

The ball soared straight and just kept carrying. His normal 110-yard 9-iron shot landed next to the 150 marker. He positioned the last ball, made a nice backswing making sure to hesitate at the top until his legs started their forward movement. An exact replay. Another high arcing shot landing next to the 150 post.

Sparky runs to get another basket of balls. He grabs his 7, 135-45 on a good day. Takes his new swing and watches the ball come down on the 175 marker. He turns around hoping someone is around to see this. No one else however has found the need to be out this early. 

He goes through his bag with the same results. Though not every ball was hit perfectly, he noticed the off-center shots had decent results. He noticed he was making nearly perfect divots. Ball first then divot. He had always heard the pros say 'clear the hips and swing through the ball', but he had always had a hit at the ball swing, not a through the ball. He hit balls until he realized he was going to be late for work.

Needless to say, Sparky could not concentrate on work that day. He apologized for being late, he apologized for messing up a couple of orders. He did not apologize for rushing off immediately after clocking out at the end of the day. He sped back to the range praying he remembered the swing.

He hit balls until it was too dark to see, with the same results as early that morning.

Had he literally stumbled into the secret of golf? Had he learned 'the move' that all pros have to possess to compete at the highest level?

Saturday morning could not come soon enough for Sparky Mullins.

                                        Chapter II