I’m Sorry We Stole Your Golf Balls!

(Content warning! contains Irish teenage expletives!)

As a young teenager, I had a friend called Jack that was a bit of a kleptomaniac. So much so, that he was expelled from his Grammar school for stealing a Roman coin from a museum. I thought that was pretty cool!

At the weekends, we would often play golf together. This was a hobby our parents funded to keep us out of mischief. Being a teenager in Northern Ireland in the 80s was a recipe for mischief. If we were not on the golf course, then who knows what we’d be up to. Lighting fires and smashing windows perhaps (let's not get into that one!)

Unfortunately, neither of us had the golfing prowess of our fellow countryman Rory McIlroy. One bad swing after another would send our balls into the nearest gorse bush or lake, never to be seen again. This was bad news for us, as they were expensive to replace. But my friend Jack came up with a cunning plan. Not only could we replenish our golf balls, but we could also make some money too!

One day we were on the fairway and I noticed Jack was staring back towards the fifth tee.

'Sure, would yeh just take a wee look up there like.' he said.

'Take a wee look at what Jack. Come on fer fucks sake. It's your shot!

'Now, just hold yer horses a minute. Look back up at that tee box and tell me what yeh see.' he said.

'Oh Jesus Jack, I can see fuck all squared! The tee box is behind the hill. I can't bloody see anything. Just hurry the fuck up will yeh!'

'That my whole fuckin' point you doughnut. If we can't see it, then no one else can either. Come on. Lets get into those bushes. Quick!'

Before I knew it, Jack had dragged me into the thick of the gorse bushes with my golf bag. Then just a few moments later, a crack, followed by a whizz and and thud, suddenly had Jack running towards the fairway like an Olympic sprinter. He grabbed the oncoming players ball and ran straight back to the bushes again.

'Oh my god Jack! You're a fuckin' nut job!' I said.

'Nah. they can't see a thing. Look!'

He was right. By the time the unsuspecting players came over the brow of the hill, we were already back in our hiding place.

I can still see the confused faces of the golfers searching for their balls. If anyone plays golf, they will know how annoying it is when you hit a good shot and the ball goes missing. Especially if there was a wager involved and you had to take a penalty stroke!

But it gets worse!

Now, the thing about golf balls, is that they all pretty much look the same. So being the young entrepreneurs that we were, we would take them home after a good days thieving, then clean them up good as new. Then the following week, we would sell them to golfers at the clubhouse.

Jack always enjoyed a dare, so sometimes he would sell the same ball back to the golfer that had owned it in the first place. He would even get a thank you for it!

I suppose from a certain point of view, you could say that we didn’t exactly steal the golf balls but … well… just recycled them back on to the course again. Right?

So, the moral of this story is … well there isn’t one really. But we certainly had a lot of fun and at least we weren't stealing cars!

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Originally published at https://medium.com/never-stop-writing/im-sorry-we-stole-your-golf-balls-a01e539a88b2