An Affair with Golf

I love golf balls.  I don’t play golf though.  Did a number of tee-off shots while I was in Genting’s Awana club some years ago just because I got challenged by our CEO.  I’m kind of suspicious he doesn’t take kindly to people who don’t play golf.  Anyway my only relationship with golf is that I keep a golf club by my bedside.  One that a neighbor wanted to throw away.  That is for adjusting the air conditioner flaps manually.  If you think that’s for security, my opinion is that it wouldn’t serve any real purpose if there’s an intruder in the house.  I believe the better answer would be to make as much noise as possible, like triggering the car alarm for example, to scare him away rather than confront him.  But it's still better to keep something handy just in case.

My only other involvement with golf is I’m in the habit of picking up stray golf balls in, of all places, football fields.  I think there are some budget conscious wannabe golfers who find the tee-off practice ranges at the clubs are charging too much for their pockets.  So they do their stuff at housing estate football fields.  I think they pose a danger to kids and other residents, but so far I haven’t heard of any complain yet.  The drawback is that they lose their balls often.  I must have picked up at least 4 of these around the fields in our four adjoining housing estates.

The 5th one cannot be counted because the guy was still practicing at one corner of the field.
That was one early morning when we were passing through the field.  I said to wife, 'Someone just lost another golf ball'.  I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket.  Someone said, 'Aah!'  Then I saw him.  He was standing near a clump of trees in a far corner of the field with a club on his shoulder.  Embarrassed, I said, 'Sorry. I thought it’s someone’s lost ball.'  I placed it back on the ground.  He said, 'It’s ok, you can have it.'  Generous guy, I thought.  I said, 'No, thanks.' 

I think nobody’s doing tee-off practices on football fields after that.

Now, the thing I noticed about golf balls is that they’re made to near perfect symmetry.  You can place one on a flat surface and the tiny flat area on top of the ball would be exactly central and directly opposite the tiny flat area on the bottom.  That’s how I could clamp one on a bench drill and make a hole right through the center of the ball.  4 balls drilled this way are enough for me to replace the 4 pesky casters on my wife’s clothes drying rack. The original rubber casters came with fine American inch-thread fittings for which I couldn’t find replacements anywhere after running through every hardware shop and supermarket in town.  Almost had to throw away the whole rack just for want of some spare tires.

 
So, it’s thanks to budget conscious golf players.