Larks goes golfing

It had been about 2 years since Ron and I had seen Larks, when he invited us up to his apartment.

The three room place was, as had all his places previously, filled to the brim with an ecclectic gathering of all things unexpected. Within arms reach you could find the Wall Street Journal, bullets, a book on flower arranging, a small vial of arsenic, boxing gloves, and a pair of perfectly pressed green plain golf pants.

What was new to his usual set up was that the eastern wall of the 25x15 main room was covered with a army suplus cargo net that had an old blanket zip-tied to it.

"OK..", Larks said looking at me, " I know you're a good golfer and I've been looking forward to seeing you so that you can check out my swing."

He then walked over to an old fisherman's hip wader and pulled it out of a pile of stuff. Shoved in the hip wader/ make shift golf bag were an assortment of mismatched and rusted clubs.

That's when I noticed a few things. First of all there was a torn up piece of astro turf in the middle of the room. Secondly, sitting next to me was a pile of handdrawn scorecards complete with yardages and scores written in. Lastly, and most startling were the big holes ripped into the ceiling and wall directly behind Larks.

" OK, so check this out " as he started with a couple of practice swings, " now I've had to modify my swing a little because there's not a lot of room in here. But just watch it and imagine that I could swing the whole way around and tell me what you think. "

He then fished around in his pocket, threw a ball onto the astro turf, and with a compact and incredibly powerful swing that somehow missed the walls, the TV, and his two guests, smashed the ball with a deafening CRACK.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Ron and I screamed as we dove for cover.

" What are you guys doing ?" Larks asked as the ball gentle rolled off the cargo net and back onto the turf. " It's fine. I almost never miss the net. It only really get's tricky with the wedges." as he pointed to a number of dents in the ceiling around the top of the netting.

For the next 15 minutes we watched him smash ball after ball into the net with great force and accurracy as he explained to us his routine. He'd get up every morning and play 18 holes. He'd write up a course, imagine where the ball might go depending on how he felt he hit it, and he'd mark down his score.

To eliminate the wedge situation he recreated a exact replica of a golf ball out of aluminum foil wrappers and he'd use that to chip around the 'green'.

Putting had it's own system. He had another piece of turf and a putting ball. At the end of the turf he had three dumbells of varying size. For short putts he putted at the big dumbell and for long putts he's have to hit the small one.

It was quite the set up.

He demonstrated by playing the first two holes of his Blue Course......SMASH ! " Bah, I sliced that one....not bad though...240...right rough.....SMASH.....nice save.....a little short but I should have a good pitch to the green..." out came the aluminum ball. A chip and a two putts later he was in with bogey.

Ron asked, " So how has this improved your game ?"

" Well when I started I shot around a 104 for the Blue course, but lately I've been breaking 90 regularly." he said gesturing to the stack of scorecards.

" That's great", I offered, " has it help with your...errrr....outside game ?"

" Dunno. I've never played real golf."

( on Monday....Larks tries out for the PGA tour)