Bragging rights

I don't brag much, unless its about my wife or sons or the wonderful news staff that makes me look good every day.

Other than that, I don't brag much.

Then along comes a golf tournament -- who cares if it's a scramble? -- and a first-place trophy.

I'm sorry. I can't help myself. I've turned into a bragging fool.

The first time I ever swatted a golf ball was sometime in the mid-1950s when Bill Price, the high school-age older brother of one of my friends, let me swing a nine-iron in his back yard where he was lobbing balls into the field behind his house in Government Village in my favorite hometown in the Ozarks over yonder -- a field that today is an established subdivision with big trees.

It was more than 20 years before I held a golf club again, this time at the country club in Maryville, Mo., where the real estate agent who sold us our house thought it was time I learned to golf. The day after an interesting and mostly miserable 18 holes of golf, the president of Northwest Missouri State University invited me join his group at the golf course. To this day, whenever he needs a good metaphor, he says he would rather do just about anything, including handling live snakes, than play another round of golf with me.

In spite of that gosh-awful day, I was hooked on golfing. And I was terrible at it.

At one point I gave away a set of clubs -- a rather nice set, by the way -- to my next-door neighbor. I swore off wasting time at something I obviously had no business doing.

Another 10 or 15 years go by, and the golf itch returned after we moved to Cape Girardeau. I bought another set of clubs. I went to the driving range and hit thousands -- I am not exaggerating -- of balls. I found a pro at one of the local golf courses who was willing to give me lessons. I assume he and St. Jude, patron of hopeless cases, had many intimate conversations. The pro left town, and I'd like to think it wasn't entirely because of me.

One day I noticed that I was a better golfer than I used to be. I was hitting straighter if not longer. I was making crucial putts. I broke 100. Then 90.

And there came a day, a memorable, glorious, etched-in-stone day when four of us met at a course we had never played before more than an hour's drive from Cape Girardeau and played 18 holes and then played another 18. It was on the second 18 that I shot an 80, my lifetime best.

And I stopped playing.

I had all kinds of excuses: not enough time, important things to do, projects around the house, travel plans, aching shoulder.

Rather than maintain whatever level of golfing I had achieved, I only played in an occasional scramble. A few years ago my team took first place. I won a $100 gift certificate at the pro shop of the course we were playing. I still have it.

The Southeast Missourian has a golf outing every spring. I played in several, and then there were reasons not to play even in that just-for-fun event. My team never placed.

This year was different. Way different.

The last time I had golfed was in the company outing three years ago. I had put my clubs in the part of the basement that is a black hole of castoffs. There are a million things there, but just try to find one of them. The day before this year's golf outing -- last Saturday -- I managed to locate the clubs. A few minutes before leaving for the golf course I realized I hadn't found my golf shoes. A frantic few minutes later I located them.

I won't say much about the golf last Saturday, except to say that the team I played with -- Jeff Breer from the sports department and Adam Burnham, advertising director -- won first place.

A lot of folks at the outing couldn't believe it, including me.

That explains the trophy on my desk with the two spotlights and the official scoring banner from the tournament on my office window.

I'm sorry if anyone thinks I've gone overboard. But I couldn't find the rotating light with a siren that goes off every five minutes, which is what I was looking for.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.