Spending some time at the big LPGA golf tournament out at Pinnacle Country Club brought back some fond memories of a game my dad used to play with my brothers and me.
It had to do with golf balls, but no clubs. Maybe some of the players at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship played this little game when they were kids, too.
Our family lived on a little residential lake near Blue Springs, Mo., east of Kansas City, called Lake Tapawingo. It’s about the size of Lake Fayetteville.
One of the benefits for lake residents was playing golf on a six-hole course that had sand greens. We could see the first three holes across the lake from our house. The way sand greens work is this: when a miracle happens and your shot lands on the green, you use a weighted tool to smooth a yard-wide path across the sand. You place your golf ball on the path, however far it is from the hole, and putt.
My dad, Mike Putthoff , is a golf nut. Back in the day he played that sandgreen course to death and shot a good game at every other golf course there was around Kansas City.
Jean, my mom, was pretty good herself. Trophies they both won were on display all over our house. Mom tried to teach me the game, but it didn’t stick. I liked fishing.
Two of the holes at the sand-green course were tricky. If you overshot the green from the tee box or fairway, your ball landed in the lake. We kids could watch the splashes happen while we played in the yard.
Toward the end of summer, Dad would summon my two brothers and me. “How’d you boys like to play a little game? A little swimming game?”
We were all in for that.
Dad said he’d play, too.
So off to the golf course we went, barefooted, in our swimming trunks. Into the lake we dove where all the too-long golf shots met their watery end. The water was only about shoulder deep on us boys. Maybe waist deep on Dad.
Here was the game: we waded along, feeling the mud lake bottom with our toes and feet. Whenever we’d feel a golf ball, we’d dive down and get it. The person finding the most golf balls wins.
Pretty darned smart of dear old Dad. We boys found this game to be swell fun and Dad ended up with a bucket full of golf balls. I’d say we found 20 or 30 every time. Most were in good shape. Don’t know if the kids who live out at Pinnacle get to play this game or not, but their parents ought to get it going.
That sand-green course at the lake is long gone. Dad still lives there and he’s still crazy about golf. I visited him last weekend and he assured that he’d be glued to the tube this week, watching the LPGA action going on at Pinnacle.
Bet he smiles whenever a ball plops into the drink.
FLIP PUTTHOFF IS OUTDOORS EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
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Outdoor, Pages 6 on 06/20/2013