Your Car Is Not Safe

I almost got myself killed on a golf course on Saturday.

Austin has lots of cheap municipal courses, and that's usually where I play. I stick to them for two reasons: they're cheap and I'm terrible.

One of the downsides to the cheap munis is that they can be in some strange locations, such as in the middle of an urban area. And to top it off, sometimes they put the holes in strange places, like right alongside a very busy street in the middle of an urban area. Perhaps you see where this is headed.

On Saturday, my legal representative, Dean Zyvarb, and I were golfing at Hancock, one of these cheap municipal courses. One of the holes there runs parallel with Red River, which is a major, major street around downtown Austin. We're not talking some little two-laner residential street, either. This street runs right through the UT campus and is always packed with traffic.

Like I was saying, this one hole is parallel to Red River. Not only is it parallel, but it's really close to the street. In fact, the hole is so close to the street that if you slice your first shot by 30 or 40 yards, your ball will be rifled into the middle of this major road near downtown. I've seen a few people do this before (including myself), but I've never seen anybody actually hit a car or a person, thankfully. Of course, if one plays there enough, that's bound to change.

Dean went first on that hole, and he hit it pretty well. Next, it was my turn. I must say here that I was slightly nervous. Not only is this hole right by Red River, but it's also next to a major intersection, so you have lots of people gawking. Even in the most low-pressure scenario, me at the driving range, I'm pretty awful, so any additional scrutiny means things get dangerous. Hitting a pedestrian and knocking out their eyeballs is a definite possibility.

I step up to the tee and I hit my drive pretty well, but it is not straight. It's definitely got some mustard on it and it's curving right. In fact, It's curving directly towards Red River, which is conveniently stacked up with traffic.

Roughly one second later, my ball whanged thunderously off of the roof of a silver Xterra.

"What am I supposed to do?" I said.

"Run," advised my lawyer, as he took off down a hill.

I didn't really feel good about running though, since I did hit a dude's car, and hard, with my ball. I decided to just stay in there in case the guy wanted some insurance info. I figured the worst case scenarios went A) Run over by Xterra; B) Forced to pay for body work on Xterra; C) Attacked by Xterra driver. (I wasn't that afraid of being attacked since I did have a big bag of clubs with me.)

Sure enough, the Xterra wheeled around over towards me. As it approached, the passenger in the car rolled the window down. I was ready for a civil conversation; after all, it was my fault and I felt bad about it. At the same time, it wasn't like I did it on purpose. If I could target the roof of an SUV from 200 yards away, I'd use that talent for good, not for zinging balls out into traffic.

As the Xterra passed by, it did not stop or even slow down. Instead, the passenger leaned out, gave me the finger, and unleashed a torrent of obscenity at me. I didn't really follow exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of, "Thanks for hitting my car," along with a few f bombs. And since they clearly didn't want anything from me, my response was, "Anytime."

Posted by Cody at November 19, 2007 6:24 PM