Golfers, a Hazard to Our Health!

---

After walking through beautiful woods for several hours, and after stopping for lunch at an outdoor cafe in a small mountain village, we entered an area of open fields. As we walked, an open field was on our left and a barbed wire fence was on our right. The fence was the boundary between the field and a golf course. The day was a beautiful day, bright sunshine, a high blue sky and the temperature was in the high 70's.

Ahead of us were four golfers, two couples. We stopped, Nancy was about ten yards ahead of me. The golfers were about fifty yards ahead of us and about forty yards to our right. We stopped to watch. One of the men hit the ball and I tried to see where it was going, but I could not see it. Suddenly there was a THUNK about three feet from me. The golfer, and I am using that term very loosly, had sliced the ball as far to his right as he had hit the ball forward. He teed up another ball and hit it. This time his slice was even worse. The ball landed in the wheat field between Nancy and me and about ten feet to our left.

Being a nice guy I retrieved the golf ball and tossed it onto the golf course. The first ball lay in the rough right beside the barbed wire fence. So, again being a nice guy, I walked over, leaned over the fence and pointed to the first ball that was in the rough. He walked over and tried to hit the ball out of the rough. There was no way he could make his second shot from where it had landed. As I picked up the ball, I felt a painful sting on my right shin. Looking down I saw the trouble. Stinging Nettle was growing there and I had wandered into it. I suppose this supports the idea that no good deed goes unpunished. I called to Nancy to wait for me. When I caught up with her we poured some of our drinking water over my leg to wash the histamine and formic acid from my leg.

We decided not to tempt fate by standing around watching this fellow hit a third ball. Actually he didn't. He walked to the ball I had tossed onto the fairway and made a drop. My guess his score for the 9 holes must have been about 543 strokes.

Anyway, the lesson was, when around a golf course WATCH OUT, golfers are a real hazard to the health of others.

Nancy-Bill has rather poor hearing since only one ear functions normally. He had missed the first (and never located) ball. As I was walking in front of him, I heard a plunk on my right. My thought was 'whatever bird that was must be enormous' thinking some bird had just barely missed my head with quite a 'dump'. Then I heard him exclaiming about poor golfers who were aiming things at his head. I didn't find that ball and after I heard Bill sort of screaming about the stinging nettles, I wasn't at all interested in wandering into the weeds to help out. This was the only relatively boring part of our whole hike. I mean who gets excited, except for the danger, about walking past a golf course? We continued until there was a stile across the barbed wire enclosure and the hiking symbol pointed us ACROSS the golf course right in front of several tee-off places. You can imagine how cautiously we proceeded in front of what were obviously amateur golfers. We would wait till someone hit a ball then sort of run till we got past the next possible danger zone. Then we came to the edge of the woods, crossed another stile and were back into deep almost wilderness type of woods. What a relief. The golf 'hazard' had been an odd interlude in an absolutely perfect day of hiking. Bill sort of glossed through the little restaurant where we had our lunch. Actually it was a pension with an outdoor and indoor restaurant attached. We chose to sit on the shady side of the pension quite alone in the out of doors. There was a crowd of sun-worshipers on the other side. We had packed our lunch since we had no idea where we would find ourselves when we got hungry. So we ordered two sodas and ate our sandwiches. I got really thirsty so I ordered a fruit juice drink Iced Fruit Cappy Pear which was fantastic. Then I looked at their menu and found what sounded like a great crepe dessert. We ordered one and WOW it was as good as the Czech sounded. You know some of us learn only words associated with yummy desserts. There was fresh fruit cut up to look exactly like canned fruit cocktail, real whipped cream and ice cream too on top of a really large, thick pancake. After we paid and used the WC, I noticed they had postcards for sale there of the pension and some of the surrounding area of the attractive little town. I picked up the ones I wanted to buy and asked for the price. The owner/manager shook his head and made the universally understood body language signs for just take them they are yours. It was a lovely gesture which reinforced my very positive impression of this pension. Taking a hike in the Czech Republic is always full of lovely surprises both with the beauty of the countryside and the friendliness of the people who live there. We have been favorably impressed at every turn with this country and its citizens.

---

Photos

Making His Drop
This guy is a hazard to anyone within 100 yards of him.

In the Rough
No way was he going to hit the ball our of this rough.

The Green
A three par hole. I think he got on the green in 9.