Log: Garrison and Pixie's Golf Day

[x-welshpixie.livejournal.com]

"Thanks for taking me to the golf course, Mr. Kane!"Pixie said cheerfully as she took her set of rented clubs from the pro shop assistant. Hudson Hills Golf Course was supposed to be the premiere public golf course in the county. It didn't look super fancy so far, but she was still glad she had taken the advice to cover her wings up under a borrowed Adidas warm-up jacket. It definitely had different clientele from her usual hangout, the mall. Maybe she would take it off once they were safely out on the course.

"So, ah, I know the basic rules and stuff but I've only played real golf in P.E. at school. Oh, and can I drive the cart or are we gonna walk the course? I'm taking driver's ed later this summer. I'll be good!"

"You can drive the cart, but slowly. First time we end up in a sand trap, I take over."Kane said, waving her towards the drivers seat. His own clubs were specially made, wrapped with the kinetic displacement padding that Mac Hudson had developed. The material cancelled out most of Kane's preternatural strength, allowing him to drive the ball normally instead of exploding them on contact like a normal full strength swing from him would do. It had been years since he was last on a golf course, but when Pixie had asked for someone to take her golfing, he'd been at hand and didn't mind an excuse to wander a course for an afternoon.

"You're also keeping score, kiddo. Rule is that you can only cheat up to five strokes a side."

"Okay, deal,"said Pixie, clambering into the driver's seat. The electric vehicle didn't have much power anyway, but it was fun. She steered them to the first hole and paused at the championship tee box. "Uh, I'm gonna use the red tees, so you go first!"Kane was definitely going to out-drive her. She was going to have to concentrate on her short game and use her cheats wisely, she decided.

"Blue tees. Meant for pros and the ignorant."Kane climbed out and selected his driver. "You know what Winston Churchill said about golf, eh?"
Kane carefully positioned the tee into the turf and balanced the ball on top. "He said that golf was the best way to spoil a nice walk."With a brief waggle of the club head, he sighted and ripped a drive. The ball left the tee with a sharp crack, and while it had plenty of distance, it was also slicing away from the fairway, and into the rough almost a hundred metres from the green. "He was right."

"That's good!"Pixie said, taking a couple practice swings with the 3 wood. She had never gotten used to the driver in P.E. class. "Well, I kinda like sports where you get to muck about outside but don't have to run around too much or tackle people. I didn't realize golf was so popular in America. Well, I mean, you guys do the Ryder cup and stuff but it seems like amateur golf is huge here, too."She teed up and missed with the first swing.
"Ah, that was my last practice swing!"
The next hit connected and the ball found fairway, bouncing on a good distance. It didn't go too far but at least it was safe.

"I think Americans like any sport that allows you to run around outside in a small car and call it exercise."Kane said, walking down the fairway to where her ball was sitting for her to take her next shot. "It's popular enough in Canada, but it never gets included in our gym classes."

"Yeah, if only Formula 1 racing was part of P.E.,"Pixie said as she examined the distance to the hole. It was a short par 4, but it still looked far away from her position and she wasn't sure if she could get it on the uphill green. Sticking with her 3 wood, she gave in another hit. It ended up rolling over the back side of the green, into the rough on the other side.

"Better shot."Kane said, as he finally located his ball in the rough. There was tall grass all around it, and he pushed away a few leaves in order to square up on it. The seven iron made a humming sound, but the ball shot away at a forty-five degree angle. The ball bounced three times before dropping itself right in the centre of the sand trap. "Hell. Day at the beach."

Pixie grinned as she pulled up in the cart and took them up the green.
"I guess yours is technically closer?"she said as she climbed out and assessed the damage. She grabbed her pitching wedge and lobbed hers onto the green. It was downhill now and the ball rolled too far away from the hole for her to putt it in on the next shot.
"Argh!"

"Put the driver back in your bag, Megan."Garrison sat on the edge of the turf and watched the ball roll past into the edge of the green. He pulled out his sand wedge and set up in the sand trap. A few short practice swings and he took a hack at the ball. It hit the edge of the trap and ricocheted back over his head to land in the rough behind the sand trap.

"Whoa! That looked pretty cool, even though it went backward. I can never hit it out of the sand,"said Pixie. She scowled at the pitching wedge and switched it for the putter. The ball might be slightly off the green but she had a lot more control with the putter. And, like she hoped, the first put got decently close to the hole.

"Much better. Now to see if I can avoid negative yardage again."Garrison took his nine iron, choking it up and all but cupped the ball with it, muscling it high in the air. It landed on the green with a moist bounce, but unfortunately, began to pick up speed on the down slope and ended up right on the far distant edge from the hole, just on the rough side of the edge.

Pixie, warming up quickly in the sun, peeled off her jacket while Garrison was hitting.
"Hehe, we kind of suck so far,"she said as she flew to the hole and pulled out the flag. She then skipped over to her ball. It was only about a metre from the hole, and it was uphill. It just needed a little... more... power. She hit it with the putter and it seemed to pause right at the edge of the cup before going in.
"Yeah! I take that back, a single bogey is pretty good!"she exclaimed. She marked a 5 for herself, then stopped dancing around so Mr. Kane could focus on the really long put ahead of him.

"I don't even know what that means."Kane joked, as he lined up his putt. The stroke was on line, but the break of the green carried it to the right. He groaned as it fetch up a good three feet from the hole, forcing him to saunter over and knock it in. "Hmm, did I hit double digits?"

"No, just six, I think,"Pixie replied. She began counting on her fingers as she mentally replayed the game. "Yeah, that was six!"She marked it down and flipped over the scorecard to the course layout. "Oh, the next hole looks really long. Yep, it's a par 5. That's like super-bogey land for me. And there's a sand trap right in the middle! How is that fair?"

"It is fair because golf is a game meant for masochists. I'm amazed that there isn't a mandatory paddling on the fifth green built into the rules."Kane took a look at the second hole par five. Normally, most courses put the par fives towards the end of the front nine and in the middle of the back nine. But this one had obviously decided to try and break their golfers spirits early. "That is an ugly patch of sand, and it humpbacks after to the green, so you can't even hug the inside and punch past it. Nasty. Uh, you want to go first?"

"Ah, sure? Hey, at least there's no water and the rest should be a breeze after this!"

"I spent most of the last hole shooting behind myself. I don't count anything as a breeze."Kane pointed to the blocks with his driver. "Take your shot, Megan."

Pixie jogged up to the red tees and took a couple practice swings. Her actual swing sent the ball sharply to the left. When it stopped rolling, it left her in the rough in a really weird spot to either try and hit over the bunker or go around it. She stood and stared at it for a minute, frowning, before remembering to get out of the way so Kane could take his turn.

"Fore!"Kane yelled as he unleashed a mighty swing on the ball. It went out in a screaming drive, arcing over the fairway and landing as if it was perfectly bulls-eyed into the centre of the sandtrap.

"Oh man,"said Pixie. It seemed like the sand was there to keep anyone from driving too far off the tee. She just hoped it wasn't going to wreck her second shot. She grabbed an iron from her bag and used it to try to hit the ball out of the rough while still avoiding the sand. It plunked back down in the rough, a ways ahead, but it was clear of the bunker.

"This keeps going like this, and I'm going to need to start paying you for lessons."Kane trudged into the sand with his nine iron, hoping that the sand would be packed down enough that he could punch the ball back on to the fairway. He sighted carefully, and swiped the ball, catching it partway cleanly, and sending it bouncing on to the fairway with a shower of sand.

"Hehe, when's the last time you golfed, though? I took golf in P.E. not too long ago."
Pixie drove the cart up to her ball and leaped out.
"If I could just get onto the fairway..."she coaxed the ball as she aimed at it with her seven iron. There were only limited clubs she felt comfortable with. Luckily, this did it trick and it landed right in the middle of the fairway, with probably two more hits to the putting green.

"The last time I golfed was in college. And by this far into the course, I was already drunk."Kane paused, and gave her an embarrassed look. "It was frat golf. We played best ball, best beer golf. I seem to recall diving into the water trap on the twelve hole, but the security officers were very understanding."

"Oh, wow."Pixie had a hard time imagining one of the teachers drunk. "I wonder if I'll have that much fun in college?"She pressed on the gas and moved them up to Kane's ball. Hers was just slightly ahead, so she jumped out too and grabbed her club.

"There's fun and there's occasionally too much fun."Kane realized that perhaps he should try and pretend to be a responsible role model. At the same point, wasn't the point of college to drink too much, have ill advised sexual encounters and throw up in inappropriate places?

"I didn't really know if I wanted to go to college. But this summer I decided that I want to be a professor so I can hang out like you guys,"Pixie explained in her airy tone. "So I need a degree. Maybe in mythology or world literature."

"Hang out like us guys?"Kane grinned. "I work in the city most of the week you know."

"Oh, what do you do in the city? I'm sorry, I forgot. Well, I could work outside the school too. Like, make art like Kevin!"She was still convinced that adults got to do cool stuff. "If I got a lot better at painting,"she added.

"I'm a cop; an agent with the FBI."Garrison said, lining up his shot. "You could certainly work as a professor outside of the school."He took a swing that sent the ball slicing into the rough with a sigh.

"FBI! Right!"Pixie was pretty absent-minded but this was embarrassing. She sent her ball one stroke closer to the yellow flag in the distance. She could probably be putting after the next one.

"Oh, do some of the teachers teach in the public schools?"Xavier's was like a separate world for her. She forgot that it overlapped with her former world, the regular human world, frequently.

"Some have. I know that McCoy has lectured all over the Ivy League at times. Doctor Grey's done similar."Kane trudged after his ball. "Xavier's is supposed to be an option for you kids, Megan. Not a requirement. So long as you need a place, you'll have one at the school. But if your path leads you to somewhere else, you're free to follow it."

"That's cool. Well, I still have time to decide, right? I'll be a senior in the fall! It's going to be so much fun,"she gushed.

"Exactly. Plenty of time to decide."Kane tried a chip which bounced on the edge and went all the way into the rough on the opposite side of the green. "Okay, this is the stupidest game on the planet. I'll make you a deal, Megan. You forge a reasonable score on that card and I'll cover ice cream and a round at Putt-Putt World on the way home. Deal? "

Pixie was already aiming her next shot, which rolled up almost to the green, then rolled back down the way it came. She almost threw her club down.
"Oh, you have a deal," she agreed. She marked Kane for par and herself one over. "Let's go!"