Published: July 11, 2008 02:53 pm         

Golfers can withstand adversity

Devoted golfers are legendary for the lengths they will go to play the game they love.

They’ll equal the standards set forth by the Postal Service as they play through, rain, sleet, snow and with special glow-in-the-dark golf balls in the gloom of night.

Everyone has heard the jokes about golfers’ intensity once they get on the course.

Like this one:

Stan was playing a round at a very popular country club near his home. He pulled his cart around the curve between the ninth and 10th holes near the road and noticed a funeral procession moving along. He stopped the cart, hopped out, doffed his cap and bowed his head as the hearse rolled by.

As he was preparing to get back behind the cart’s wheel, a fellow golfer stopped and said, “I saw how you treated the funeral coming past. I was impressed at your reverence.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Stan said. “Come Wednesday, we’d have been married 37 years.”

A true story:

A family foursome featuring two brothers, a nephew by marriage and a brother-in-law were enjoying an afternoon on the links in West Texas when one of the brothers began to wheeze and complain of severe chest pains. As the nephew reports, there were several emergency medical technicians on site for a tournament. They offered assistance to the stricken golfer until the ambulance rolled down the cart path, loaded him and rushed him to the hospital.

The three remaining golfers hemmed and hawed and finally decided their fallen relative would be tied up in the emergency room then admissions for a couple of hours — so they finished the back nine before checking on his health, much to the chagrin of the family’s womenfolk.

Another true story:

According to the Associated Press, four men and two caddies were golfing at Brynwood Country Club near Milwaukee, Wis., when a pair of armed, masked bandits appeared from the woods surrounding the 16th tee and robbed them of their cash.

Being hardy golfers, the men, now lighter in the wallets, finished the Saturday round.

According to the AP, no one at the club, one of the most prestigious in the Midwest, canceled tee times the rest of Saturday or Sunday.

A funny story:

A preacher awoke to the most beautiful Sunday morning he’d ever seen. He gave in to the temptation to call an associate pastor with a tale of sickness, then grabbed his clubs and headed to the golf course.

On the first hole he ripped a 350-yard drive that left him three inches from the cup.

On the second he added 20 yards to his drive and carded another eagle.

On the third, a long par-5, the preacher crushed his drive and strained to see down the fairway as his shot miraculously rolled across the green straight for the flag for his first-ever hole-in-one.

He was ecstatic, looking around for a witness.

At the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter looked at God and said, “With all he’s done wrong to get to play today, how can you let this go on.”

God smiled and said, “Who’s he going to tell?”

     

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