glass ceilings

to my avid readers -- tonight is the Democratic Convention and as Hilary said -- many 'dents' were made in the glass ceiling during this primary and history will be made when her name is put into nomination. Well - this past Sunday -- we did BREAK THE GLASS CEILING. There were two regulars - Barry and me and Arthur, a friend of Barry's. As we were approaching the first tee -- a woman - using one of those 'hi-tech' electric push carts approached and declared she was our fourth. Jill - and no not the Jill who is a regular contributor to the blog and takes particular pleasure in pointing out grammatical, spelling and any other errors she can find - joined our foursome and broke the glass ceiling - in a cursory review of the annals of the golf schedules of Saxon Woods, we could not find another occurrence of a single - being a woman - joining three men - none of whom were related or knew her before the round.

I'm sure that other - less enlightened men - the typical chauvinistic golfer - would have groaned - probably out loud - thinking that 'a woman' would slow up their round and impact negatively their game. Speaking for Barry and me (don't know Arthur well enough but since he wears an earring I'm fairly comfortable in thinking he'd agree with us) - that never entered our mind -- rather, our concern were for a more basic problem that having a woman playing with us would make -- peeing on the golf course at will more difficult. Since I promised complete candor and total honesty when we first started this blog - 10 years ago - my usual pattern of watering a minimum of 4-6 holes per round was dramatically reduced to one 'quick urination' fully covered by trees, swamps and rocks.

Jill - is a 22 y/o woman who is on the golf team at Wellsley. She was nattily dressed in yellow golf shorts (if I said short golf shorts - would that be redundant) and a red colored polo shirt - that fit her well. She had medium length blond hair that she wore in a pony tail. On occasion - after she swung -- her shirt would slightly ride up revealing a tattoo (flower) on the small of her back. Since Jill had to tee off after the men did, (the women's tee is closer to the hole and women go after the men - for safety reasons) , we had ample opportunity to note the color of the flower, the number of blossoms, the stem that went southward into areas not seen.

History was also made on the third hole -- but I get ahead of myself.

The day was beautiful -- Arthur was a welcomed addition -- he was willing to tee off first, didn't take too many practice swings, didn't dawdle, didn't play any better than we did, and was an all around nice guy -- makes him a welcomed substitute.

first two holes were non-events. But the Third hole -- a par 5 that has 'buried many a golfer' -- a veritable 'Bermuda Triangle' where golf balls that are hit on the fairway are lost, and where there are streams, forests, swamps, rocks, sand traps and thick high grass at every turn. This hole has brought all of us to tears -- and what happened today ... BARRY DID THE IMPOSSIBLE - HE BIRDIED THE HOLE. (for those who read this blog and are not up to speed on the vernacular (SAT word) - a birdie is one less stroke than one would take if one were to get a Par -- which is not an every day occurrence. So on this same Sunday that the Glass Ceiling was broke -- and may I say that we are proud to be part of this historic occurrence - Barry birdied the most difficult hole, (my opinion), on the course.

We also realized early on that Jill was a celebrity of sorts -- why else would the Ranger follow us from hole to hole, almost like a presidential motorcade - if she wasn't breaking new ground and a Saxon Woods VIP. The Ranger did an excellent job of hiding this by continually admonishing us to speed up our play. If I didn't figure out that all this attention was no different than the National Guard being employed to segregate the schools in Georgia a mere few decades ago, I would have been annoyed by this overly aggressive - phony baloney Texas ranger.

We finished the round in an acceptable 4 hours and 25 minutes. The three men played our usual round - too many bad shots and not enough good shots, while Jill played a very steady game. Every one of her tee shots went down the middle of the fairway. (she never found the rough - let alone lose a ball.) Since the women tee off approximately 20 yards in front of the men's tee -- She routinely outdrove me -- and I was driving the ball well - for me. Jill's drives, her fairway shots, her short game, her sure putting was something that we all enjoyed watching. (maybe the Ranger wasn't completely wrong in yelling at us). After the round was over - we asked Jill what we shot - and she shyly responded that she had a good round - an HONEST 82.

So we had the first woman to break the glass ceiling, walk on as a single and join an all male threesome. And even better - she played a round of golf that left us with our tongues flapping, our hearts beating faster, and a fantasy of playing as well as Jill. (I originally wrote 'and a fantasy of playing with Jill' - but unfortunately there is a small percentage of the readership, comprised of middle age men who have an emotionally fixated IQ of a 13 y/o and would find this 'misspeak' truly amusing.)

Full disclosure requires me to say that on occasion I 'embellish' the stories and I'm guilty of doing this now. I was 'playing' to the TV talent scouts who have approached me about turning this blog into a sitcom. My loyalty to you my readership is stronger than my avarice (another SAT word) and the promises of great wealth and notoriety. Jill was her true name -- but that is where the 'truth ended'. She is a woman of Germanic background, in her early to mid 60's. Her golf game was exactly as I described it -- she did shoot an honest 82 and was mostly waiting around for us to finish up.

We certainly missed our Captain who is vacationing in the home state of the Democratic VP nominee ... and look forward to having our other partner whose responsibility is to man the light house where he lives during the summer - protecting the water ways - but recognize that their absence helped us to secure our place in history.

Until next week ..... hit them long and straight -- unless you are on a dogleg.