The Most Dangerous Sport
Before leaving home on that sunny, calm morning, I slathered myself in SPF 60 lotion. To further protect my complexion, I donned a jaunty hat. It matched my outfit perfectly, and I threw my mirrored self a kiss.
I hoisted my equipment into the back of my Kia Soul. Then, tossing a casual farewell to my spouse, I drove off to participate in a local Niagara tournament.
My golfing partner Ellen and I are indomitable optimists. We rarely win prizes (except for those humiliating “most honest golfer” ones). We’d entered this contest for fun, fresh air, and fellowship. Oh, and to spend the $40 coupon that the Niagara Parks organizing committee so thoughtfully provided, which meant that the garish $96 shirt I proceeded to buy at their store cost a mere $56—such a deal, even if $56 over my budget of $0.
But my shopping mistake wasn’t the day’s biggest disaster.
The Battlefield Course is described on the Niagara Parks website as “imposing.” It has a “nice mix of wide, links-style holes with generous undulating fairways and greens that are bound by dense forest and brush.” I don’t believe there’s any mention of its carnivorous sand traps and sneaky, ball-gulping water hazards.
By the sixth hole, I’d already lost three balls. I’d burned off hundreds of calories trying to climb out of pits of sandy despair. I questioned my whole retirement strategy.
When I wasn’t searching for a missing golf ball or actually attempting to hit one, I piloted our assigned golf cart. Occasionally, needing to smack my ball farther down the fairway, I braked and leaped nimbly from my seat, leaving the vehicle in my partner’s capable charge. When she drove, she never moved from the passenger side, which would have required a soupçon of effort. Instead, she depressed the gas pedal with her left foot and steered forward using her left hand only.
Yes, that does sound rather reckless, but we’d both done this for years, never experiencing a problem. Only now—as I crouched at the edge of yet another golfer-eating sand trap, innocently extending my hand for my ball—was our safety record in jeopardy.
I never heard or saw her approach. She didn’t yell a warning. Until our cart smacked into me at full tilt, I felt no fear.
My head bounced against the hood, and I capsized like a pin knocked down by a manic bowler. A galaxy of stars twinkled comic-book style in front of my eyes as I lay on my side, trying to breathe. Then, the cart’s front passenger-side wheel plowed onto my ankle and remained there.
From my prone position on the fairway, I gazed up into my friend’s panic-stricken eyes, as impressively circular as her gaping mouth.
“Reverse! Reverse!” I shouted.
The pain intensified. Yes, the ground was moderately squishy, and the cart’s wheel was fatly overinflated, which displaced some of the pressure, but I felt my aging ankle start to give. Was that creaking noise coming from my bone, or from the cart’s brakes—or from my partner, as she tried to squash a rising scream?
Poor Ellen had frozen in fear. She was deaf to my pleas to move the cart. Maybe this was fortuitous because her inability to function might be what saved my ankle. Had she backed up, the damage could have been severe. I could have made the headlines in our Niagara-on-the-Lake paper. Right next to the usual articles listing folks who leaped into the Falls, there I’d be: Local Woman Dismembered Near Whirlpool.
Thank goodness that Millennials haven’t altogether abandoned the sport of golf. Two agile, angelic women rushed across the fairway, lifted the front of the cart, and rolled it backward and away. I remained on the ground, trying not to bawl.
Then, like Zeus descending from Olympus in his chariot, the course pro roared up in another golf cart and fussed over me. With her help, I rose. I gradually put weight on my injured side. I hobbled back and forth. I got back in the cart and we iced my ankle. Ellen had by now recovered her ambulatory and verbal skills and did so much hang-wringing and apologizing that I started to feel guilty for being run over.
Believe it or not, we finished the competition. We didn’t win any prizes, but I think they offered us a free cocktail. Even more satisfying, at the celebratory dinner, nobody had a tale that rivaled ours.
The following day, I had a bump on my noggin and a huge bruise on my forearm. Strange, I hadn’t even noticed she’d run over that, too. My ankle was sore for a couple of weeks, but it didn’t stop me from walking my dog or attending line dancing classes. I suffered no lasting trauma, and while not all my dreams were sweet, at least they didn’t feature lunatic drivers steamrolling over me.
My buddy Ellen, though, was wracked with lingering guilt—in fact, still is. Yes, she lost control of the vehicle, but she never meant to flatten me. Now and then, I joke about the situation, but I notice that I chuckle more jovially than she does. She’s scarred for life, poor thing, and tells me she’ll never forget staring down at me and being entirely unable to react.
I plan to keep golfing. I’ll walk the course whenever it’s allowed, glancing over my shoulder whenever I hear a cart approach. If I get assigned to ride on the passenger side, I’ll never, ever—not in a zillion years—use my left foot to propel the vehicle forward. It’s unsafe, and my reflexes aren’t improving as each season passes.
Plus, friends are precious. I’m much happier when they’re untraumatized, as well as healthy and in one piece.
And if I decide that golfing is altogether too dangerous a sport, I’ll take up something less perilous. Skydiving, perhaps. The goggles are kind of sexy, and the upward force of the howling wind minimizes wrinkles—and I truly doubt the pilot will ever land her plane on top of me.
