THE BAGPIPER PLAYS TAPS

On Tuesday I teed it up for the first time since our 29 days out of the country. I expected problems. They didn't occur. Oh, my score card did show two double bogies on par threes when I was just off the green on one and in a trap on the other, but overall a very good round. I was drawing the ball, hitting good drives, knocking down putts.

Until yesterday. Another course. Another day. Struggles from the second hole on where my third shot on a long par five hit an in-ground box housing sprinkler heads and careened far into another fairway. From then on and including that hole, putts lipped out, putts rolled over the hole, putts looked into the hole and decided better, and I had a miserable golf day.

Even on the last hole where I hit one of my better shots of the day, a wedge from 100 yards over water surrounding a peninsula green with six or seven tennis players urging me, the ball hit just right and kept rolling not into the hole, but close and then just off the green. They still cheered for me. One of my foursome told them they should have seen the rest of my shots.

Maybe because of my ancestry I have always liked bagpipes. Maybe because of her ancestry my wife doesn't. And when I see a picture like the one on my blog, I'm reminded of them being played at Payne Stewart's funeral. They could have run that clip for my sad game yesterday.