What could have been … doesn’t happen
April 7th, 2008, 9:51 am · Post a Comment · posted by Alex Kreitman
I had high hopes of winning a couple March Madness pools and taking home some cash, but those aspirations came crashing down Saturday.
I went 0-for-2 in the national semifinals with UCLA falling to Memphis and North Carolina bowing out against Kansas.
Both games were blowouts and both didn’t go my away.
I knew it was over for me when the Bruins lost in the early game because I had them winning it all. With that in mind, I continued to pull for the Tar Heels since I have a lot of friends that are Carolina fans. I was stunned they lost.
I was in a Charlotte bar packed in with hundreds of Tar Heel blue clad fans surrounding me and they were all in shock.
Kansas’ defense did what I didn’t think was possible, it shut down the Heels. Carolina only had five players score which is embarrassing. The Tar Heels only shot 36 percent, a credit to the Jayhawks swarming defense.
That’s all I’m really going to say about those games though because they were both boring to me. I was glad I chose to go to the Celtics game against the Charlotte Bobcats instead. I had to miss part of the games, but caught a lot on screens around the arena. Boston slaughtered the Bobcats and the game was a lot of fun.
I’m almost uninterested in tonight’s national championship. I’ll probably tune in for a little of it, but if something better is on, I’ll make the switch.
I’ve got more interesting topics to write about than college hoops today.
I played golf Sunday afternoon with a friend down in Charlotte. It turned out to be a nice day, but the course was soaking wet with all the recent rain. Several fluke things happened during our round.
First, on the third hole, a 160-yard Par 3, we were convinced I’d hit a hole-in-one. My tee shot was headed right at the flag stick, then landed and rolled just short of the cup. It was so close to rolling in. When we got to the green it was a few feet short of the cup and I made the gimme putt for birdie.
On the back nine it was my friend Ricky’s turn for an almost hole-in-one. On a 220-yard downhill Par 3, a very challenging hole, Ricky hit a soaring drive a little left of the hole, but it started to curve right and towards the flag. The ball bounced once and then hit the inside of the cup before eventually landing a few feet to the right. He also made his putt for birdie.
The most bizarre occurrence of the day and perhaps of my life on the golf course came on No. 7.
Ricky and I hit our tee shots into the fairway which went downhill. Let me first mention that from the tee box you can’t see if anyone is in the fairway playing the hole. I play my shot short of the green and now its Ricky’s turn.
As he approaches the ball for his shot I hear what sounds like the group behind us tee off, so I look back towards the tee to try and watch for a ball coming at Ricky while he’s shooting. As I’m looking back he takes his shot. As he hits, I hear an awkward sound. I hear him swing, make contact with the ball, then what sounded like the ball hit his foot. I turn away from the tee box and watch his shot trickle down the fairway about 25 yards away.
I assume that he’s just hit a really bad shot. Ricky immediately says, “What the heck just happened?” I told him, I didn’t really see it and that it must’ve hit his foot because I heard it hit something after the club. So, I’m over it quickly, thinking that’s what happened and it’s not a big deal.
Ricky walks up to his ball a short distance away and is still scratching his head in confusion. He hits the ball and immediately turns back and says, “No, that’s not my shot, that’s the group behind us. It’s their tee shot.”
I shout back, “Are you kidding? There’s no way that’s possible. I saw it roll downhill after you hit your shot. Unless it magically rolled under your feet, that’s yours.”
At this point I think Ricky has lost his mind and we argue back-and-forth for a few minutes about the topic which I think is not debatable.
We get up to the green after I demand he just hit and stop worrying about it. When getting there, Ricky finds what he says is his ball, the one he played on his second shot from the fairway. The ball is nowhere near where he hit his third shot after the errant shot off his foot. He now knows what happened and I still don’t.
As he starts to explain, the group behind us is now searching for one of their tee shots in the fairway.
Ricky fills me in on what actually happened.
As Ricky hit his second shot, the tee shot from the group behind us came down hill and hit Ricky in the foot. Ricky’s shot soared over the green, while the group’s tee shot trickled 25 feet away. What I saw was the tee shot roll forward and assumed it was his shot. He was so caught off guard by being struck in the foot with the other ball that he took his eye off his shot and had no idea where it went, also giving in and thinking that the ball in front of us was his.
But it wasn’t. We then went to the group behind us and asked what ball they were playing. Sure enough, it matched. The odds of their tee shot hitting Ricky at the same exact time he took his shot and the ball looking like his errant shot, is unreal. It’s the strangest thing I’ve seen in awhile. But it made for an interesting round of golf.
The Boston Red Sox home opener is Tuesday so I’ll have plenty to write about tomorrow. Prepare yourself to read line after line of me praising Fenway Park, the city of Boston and the rich history of its fans, while of course watching the game on my computer at work.
