The things we can learn how to do here at TBOK....
Apparently, two pieces of wood, or just one if it's a matchstick, are NOT the only way to start a fire if you find yourself stuck in the wilderness...or just some tall grass.
You can do it with an iron.
How -
1. Hit a bad shot (we are talking golf here) into the tall grass....way off the course. This will, no doubt, come naturally to some.
2. Forget about taking the penalty.
3. Try and get back on the course your own way...even if you must climb a tree or dig a hole to do it.
4. Swing like the dickens.
5. Don't worry about aiming for something to create a spark. If you're
bad
enough to get this far off the course, you are likely bad enough to hit something without aiming for it...or lousy enough to miss anything you are aiming at. So...just keep swinging.6. Watch the sparks...say 'ah!' and then huff and puff...your way out of there before you become 'fire man' or whatever that guy's name is that people go to see in the Las Vegas desert when they need spiritual renewal. A friend tells me you can be revived spiritually on the golf course. I wonder now, if this is one of the steps.
7. Admire the brush fire you have started that if left alone will burn 15-20 acres and keep burning until fire engines and 45-50 people show up to admire your, um, skill....not at golf, but at starting a fire.
Even Tiger Woods can't swing his club fast enough to start a fire that will burn up Nevada. Or can he?
Actually what this poor fellow did was (a) not as unusual as one might think, and (b) not necessarily an indication that he is bad at golf.
I learned both of those when I was playing (as a guest) at a private club in the East Bay hills, near Livermore, California, a couple of years ago. I hit a drive that landed -- even Tiger Woods does this once in a while -- just a couple of yards off the fairway and stayed in the rough, which happened to be on the slope of one of those hills I mentioned.
My ball was easy to find because in the area around it probably a little more than an acre of grass had recently been burned. Was this a controlled burn, I wondered, to reduce fire danger? But I was mostly focused on playing from the nearly bare, slightly rocky (just small rocks, more like pebbles) and sloping ground, so I forgot about it until I returned to the clubhouse.
There I asked my friend about why that area had been burned, and it had happened from the swing of a golf club.
Turns out that many modern clubs are made at least partly of titanium, and that titanium brushing across even a pebble at enough speed will cause a spark that can be significant. (I later proved this accidentally by practicing a driver swing over my sidewalk, but that's another story.)
So this fellow had swung, a spark had been created, that spark landed on some dry tinder, and the result was fire. Luckily for him this particular area was adjacent to the back yard of a house and the owner of the house was in the back yard with a hose in his hand, and he immediately ran over to help douse the fire.
The golfer had a phone and called for more assistance, and because of easy access and quick action on the part of several people the fire was contained to a relatively small area. But it could have been a big one.
One of the more famous fires in California, the Bear Fire, which burned over 10,000 acres and destroyed 80 residences, was started by a lawnmower blade hitting a rock and causing a spark in much the same way as the Nevada golfer and the California golfer before him.
Advice for golfers: don't swing a club with a titanium sole plate or face in a dry, rocky area.
As for spiritual renewal on the golf course, I still maintain that it's true. As the old church camp song says, "it only takes a spark to get a fire going."
Posted by: Lewis | June 20, 2007 11:27 AM | Permalink to Comment