The Golf Game

This story is to let you know that every now and then Elder Shipley is able to swing a club!

We had an amazing experience over the weekend. Marian and I took a few days off at the suggestion of the Area President. The Area Presidency were in Salt Lake for conference and work slows down in the Area office because of their absence. This is a twice a year occurrence and we took advantage of the suggestion. Marian has placed on this blog some experiences we had in El Mina visiting the slave castle/dungeons, driving through Cape Coast, etc.

We were quite surprised at how comfortable the Coconut Grove Hotel was and how pristine the beach seemed to be. Much to our surprise, the hotel had a nine hole golf course, which we decided to try out.

The cost was great, only $20 per person. There was no one on the course, in fact, over the two days we were there we didn’t see anyone else on the course. We picked up the rental clubs from the hotel registration desk. They only had one set (Wilson brand), so we both played from the same set. They gave us three balls to begin with, all used. They also gave us three tees, two of which were chipped.

Marian and I teed off and did pretty well. I had about 210 yards to go on my second shot and hit a 4 iron much farther than I expected. It sailed the 210 yards but landed in high grass to the left of the green. I didn’t find the ball. On Marian’s drive she broke her tee but her shot was great. Her second shot left her within pitching distance of the green. Unfortunately her pitch to the green went into the grass just beyond the green. It should have been an easy ball to find, but the grass was deeply matted, and try as we might we were unable to find that ball either. We were down to one ball, which we alternatively hit on the second hole. We were near the registration desk, so I went back and pleaded for additional balls and tees. The man looked at me with the thought of “Does this man know how to play golf!” I left thinking “Has this man ever played golf!” He found one ball and three additional used tees. We were grateful for what we got and watched each shot a little more carefully thereafter .

The greens were not green as you can see from the picture. On the third green, Marian had about a 3-inch high ant hole between her ball and the cup. We agreed that if she hit the ant hill, we would count it a made putt—she hit it square on.

We were ready to tee off on the 4th hole when we realized that the community water well was in the middle of the fairway. There were about 8 boys with their water pails gathered around the well. We didn’t want to kill or hurt anyone, so I suggested they might want to move while we teed off. We now had a gallery of over a dozen people watching us. They kind of looked at us like why did we ask them to move. Marian hit a decent shot and I whacked the ball over 250 yards in the middle of the fairway. Many of them gasped and then understood our request.

Our second shot on that hole required us to wait for a few villagers who were passing by on the trail.

We were approached by a young man who wanted to sell us used golf balls for $5 a ball. I don’t know about you, but I would swallow hard before I’d buy a good Titliest pro V-1 ball for that amount. He was offering me a used Pinnacle. We declined his offer, which he countered with 2 balls for $4. We made the mistake of turning down this offer.

On a par three hole Marian hit a palm tree and wasn’t sure whether the ball ever came out. We fortunately found it near the green. We completed our round, with several two putt greens and probably no one putt greens. However, if you were playing with us, you would have felt very good about the two putt greens. By 9 am, we were finishing our round, drenched with sweat from the humidity. I turned the clubs back in and was told we’d be charged $5 per lost ball. I tried to find the young man again, but he was gone.

We had an experience we won’t forget and that might be our only golf outing during our mission. It stands out as our most unique outing thus far.