Several years ago I was working for a distributor which supplied a specific trade. I ran a store to which local tradesmen would pay regular visits. I was relatively new in the position and was just getting to know the customers. One, I noticed one day, was wearing a golf shirt from a course I sometimes played. We found a kindred spirit in our appreciation of the game, and he invited me to play the upcoming weekend. I, however, am embarrassed by my hackery and I begged off the friendly offer. The thought of golf got under my skin though and I decided to play 18 by myself. (I occasionally have to play golf merely to remind myself how painful the experience can be.)
When I got to the course I went immediately to the putting green to practice my near misses and hone my chili-dipping chip shot. Before I reached the green I could see deep curving ruts in the smooth surface. They were clearly made by some vehicle and half the surface was ruined. After a minute of feckless practice on the remaining half of green I went to the clubhouse to pay my fees. “Who was the idiot who did a doughnut on your practice green?” I asked.
“That was the ambulance,” the clubhouse attendant replied, “Some guy got a steel rod stuck through his neck yesterday. Almost killed him.” He wasn’t sure of all the details so I just went to the first tee shaking my head in amazement.
I had been back at work for about a week and had been telling the story of the mysterious impaling to my customers. Then one day, through the storefront glass, I could see my golfing customer pull up in the passenger seat of a car. He was walking gingerly up to the door with the driver and when he entered the store I could see there was definitely something wrong.
There were sutures on one side of his neck and more on the opposite jawline and cheek. His lips were parted in a rigid grimace and a series of vertical steel rods in front of his teeth gave the appearance of a small birdcage in his mouth. My jaw dropped open and I said “Oh my God! It was you?” He managed to talk relatively clearly through his clenched teeth and described what happened.
He asked me if I remembered the tenth tee and the ground under repair to the side of the tee box. I told him I remembered it very well since I almost drove my golf cart into the barrier which the course maintenance people had placed around the recently excavated area. This turned out to be a very relevant recollection.
The grounds crew had constructed a barrier consisting of lengths of rebar (the corrugated steel rod which is used to reinforce concrete) driven into the ground and strung together with yellow nylon rope. According to my customer, he had just teed off and started to drive his cart toward the fairway. Unknown to him he had driven over a sagging portion of the rope which was snagged by the cart. As he drove away the rope stretched tighter and tighter until a two-and-a-half-foot length of rebar was pulled from the ground. The bar shot at him like an arrow and caught him just as he turned slightly. It entered the side of his neck at the jawline, just missing major arteries, knocked out the lower molars on that side, went through the oral cavity, knocked out the upper teeth on the other side, and exited the side of the cheek. Roughly the same length was protruding from each side and his tongue was immobilized by the corrugated shaft. He explained that he held each end of the rod in a handlebar fashion through the ordeal of being driven back to the clubhouse, etc.
After hearing the amazing details of the story I could only thank him for giving me another reason to avoid golf courses. Then I asked him if he wanted to join me for lunch and a double cheeseburger. There was no change in his immobilized expression so I just assumed he was smiling at my joke.