Silver Lining

It was a frustrating day. I was very close to not even playing. It was still dark, cold and raining when I woke up. I thought of calling my buddies to say I was going to sit it out but I knew one of the guys would remind me "there is no such thing as bad weather for golf, just inappropriate clothing." So I showed up. My last few rounds I had felt like everything was coming together and I was sticking the ball well. But like so many times, and what probably keeps us coming back, I couldn't hit a shot to save my life. The others in my foursome were feeling my pain while at the same time happy to win back some of their losses from the previous few Saturdays. It started raining harder, i was ready to quit. By the time we got to 16, the match was almost closed out. I was dormie when I hit the 7 iron. It was my first really crisp shot of the day but it was to an elevated green so we could not see where it ended up but we knew it was good.

When we got up to the green, there was a ball on the fringe. I thought I hit a better shot but was still happy to have a good shot at getting a birdie and keeping the match alive. After the others had hit up onto the green, I went to line up my putt and realized it wasn't my ball. Almost simultaneously, one of the others guys exclaimed, "hey, who's ball is in the hole?"