Horses For Courses

By Todd Maguire on October 24, 2013 in Other

Photo: Johnny Tapp

A good friend of Pat’s entered the club and made a beeline for his old mate.

“G’day Pat,” he said as he slapped him on the back. “What’s doing, son? How did you go out there?”

“Well, I’ve been a lot better,” Pat offered in a raspy voice with a face as long as the Great Wall of China. Pat was always one to offer a joke and was a bit of a prankster. but his sullen attitude had his lifelong friend concerned.

“Mate, I’ve been out having a hit with a couple of the boys and I was keeping a pretty good score. That was until I teed off from the fourth and, lo and behold, sliced the bloody ball off into the bushes. It’s a bloody tricky hole as you well know. As I went in to look for of the wayward ball, we offered the group of ladies behind us to follow through – as you know, it’s the right thing to do. There’s nothing worse than holding people up on the golf course,” Pat continued. His friend sat intrigued.

“As I searched in vain for my ball I came across one of old Jones’s horses from the farm over the hill. It startled me like you wouldn’t believe when I came face to face with the old nag. But this is the part you definitely won’t believe. As the horse stopped and swayed his tail to swat some flies I noticed a golf ball wedged right up his backside. I had to laugh as you don’t really see that sort of thing too often – I figured it to be a pretty good shot. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my ball. This was a yellow ball, with a distinctive brown tinge to it, I must add.”

The friend was overcome with laughter, but Pat didn’t end the story there.

“As if this wasn’t enough, one of the female golfers from the following group also appeared in the bushes looking for her lost ball. I said g’day and in a genuine concern, I lifted up the horse’s tail and asked the woman, ‘Does this look like yours?’”

Pat’s friend nearly fell off his bar stool.

“Well that’s when she swung and wrapped her nine iron right around my throat and left me for dead in the bushes. This bloody woman won’t let sleeping dogs lie. She has now tried to get me barred from the club and is probably working on getting me run out of town as we speak! I’ve apologised to her, but to her that doesn’t seem enough.”

As a good friend will always do, Pat’s mate thought for a moment and then offered support.

“Listen Pat, don’t be so hard on yourself, mate. I know this woman you’re talking about and she’s a real nasty piece of work,” he said.

The friend raised his middy of Reschs beer.

“And In all honesty Pat, I reckon it’s the poor old horse that really deserves the apology.”

Pat forced a painful smile and the two friends enjoyed a cold beer together. It had been a big day for poor old Pat.