Keeping Espiche Golf on the straight and narrow

Once upon a time, I played golf with a friend every Saturday morning. We are still friends though we rarely play golf together now.

I could sustain a case that geography drove land and mountains between us, but the greater truth is that Donal – we will call him Donal, for that is his name – liked golf to be a cruel, unforgiving experience that we could use as some form of collateral when we reach the eternal 19th hole. Like climbing Croagh Patrick, I suppose.

And so, when it was wet and dark on winter mornings, we would steel ourselves like intrepid television reporters leaning into Hurricane Irma, cocking ears off the first tee for the dull, though comforting, thud of a fairway hit somewhere out there. One time we played three holes at Fermoy Golf Club before we could trace the whereabouts of a shot.