A golf memory involving 140 yards, two hickory-shafted clubs, and several million years of evolutionary disadvantage.
Some golf memories are defined by great shots. Others are defined by great courses, close matches, or a putt that somehow found the bottom of the cup.
And then there was the time I played the 18th hole at Live Oak dressed as a T-Rex.
It seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea at the time.
The 18th was playing about 140 yards, and because wearing a full inflatable dinosaur costume apparently didn't make golf difficult enough, I decided to play the hole with a hickory-shafted 5-iron and hickory-shafted putter.
No modern technology. No forgiving cavity-backed iron. Just a couple of old clubs and several million years of evolutionary disadvantage.
Golf's Newest Swing Problem
I've spent a lot of time thinking about golf swings over the years. Tempo. Balance. Ball position. Weight transfer.
None of my previous swing thoughts included keeping an inflatable tail out of the way.
Inside the costume, visibility was limited. My arms barely reached beyond the T-Rex's body, which, now that I think about it, is probably historically accurate. Getting into a golf posture was difficult. Walking normally was impossible.
And yet, somehow, I managed to hit the ball.
The hickory 5-iron sent it toward the green, and off I went in pursuit.
Calling what followed "walking" would be generous. It was more of a prehistoric waddle, with the tail dragging behind me and the dinosaur's head bouncing with every step.
At one point, my dog Isabelle wandered into the scene, apparently curious about the newest member of the Live Oak wildlife population.
Watch the T-Rex Play the Hole
VIDEO: T-Rex Golf at Live Oak
The Short Game of the Cretaceous Period
Eventually I reached the green, where putting presented an entirely different problem.
Golfers talk constantly about getting their eyes over the ball.
Mine were somewhere inside the chest cavity of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
My first putt missed - perhaps unsurprisingly - but I managed to knock in the short one coming back.
Bogey.
I've made thousands of bogeys in my life.
I don't remember most of them.
I remember this one.
Why We Play
That's probably the real reason this little episode has stuck with me.
Golf has a way of making us take ourselves far too seriously. We worry about handicaps, swing paths, launch angles, three-foot putts and whether moving up a set of tees somehow says something about us.
Every once in a while, it's good to remember that we're grown adults chasing a little white ball around a field.
There ought to be room for some silliness.
That day at Live Oak, nobody cared what I shot. Nobody cared about my swing. Nobody cared whether the hickory 5-iron produced the proper launch angle.
We laughed. A lot.
And years later, I can remember that hole more clearly than hundreds of perfectly respectable pars I've made on the same golf course.
Maybe that's another lesson golf keeps trying to teach me.
The scorecard records the strokes. It doesn't always record the best memories.
And somewhere in the long history of golf at Live Oak, there is now a very small - and very ridiculous - chapter in which a T-Rex made bogey with a hickory-shafted 5-iron.
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