A few years back I spent a summer or two playing golf. Well, I hit a lot of balls into the woods while hanging around with three other guys. On one particular day we were hacking balls around this public course in Minneapolis. It was a hot day, that mid summer Minnesota kind of hot. A hot where the humidity is upwards of 99%, and the air feels like warm water. We had reached the forth or fifth hole, and were waiting on the tee box for the group ahead of us to clear the fairway. As we sat and waited, the sun beat down on our backs. I became tired, hot and delirious.
After a few moments, a mole ran out from under the hedges just to the left of the tee box. It ran onto the tee, and starting running frantically in circles. We all just sort of stared at the mole for a second, too tired to have any kind of reaction. Then Irik, who was first up and was standing on the tee leaning on his driver, held his club way in the air and starting chasing the mole around the tee. His knees were pumping in the air, his club waving crazily, and he grinned maniacally as he ran chasing the mole. At first I was shocked at the energy he was displaying despite the great heat, and then I was amused by the comical way in which he was chasing the mole around the tee box. He seemed to run in circles forever. Then Rick sneered between his teeth, and said, "get ‘im!" We just looked at him, and then Irik changed the trajectory of the wildly swinging driver in mid swing and came down toward the mole. I never thought for a moment he would actually hit the mole. It was fleeing crazily away from the club-swinging madman, and Irik was off kilter as one leg was way in the air, and he was precariously balanced on the other. But, the club came down smooth and hard, and it landed a blow directly on top of the mole. The mole flew a few inches in the air, rotated a hundred and eighty degrees, and landed on its back stone cold dead.
We all just stared with our mouths open, stunned by the quick and cruel killing of the mole, and by the amazing and almost impossible blow Irik had landed with his driver. We stood for an eternity in the heat of the afternoon sun while the bugs gnawed and pierced our skin staring at the dead mole and then at Irik, and eventually someone said, "That was so fucking surreal." The fairway was clear, so we moved on.
