Fear and Loathing in Valle Escondido

I'm a golf ball. I've got more dimples than a Hollywood starlet, but that's another story. I'm here today as a designated spokesball for all our kind, be they Titleist, Top Flite, Srixon, Pinnacle or any other brand and for balls of all colors and conditions, white, pink, yellow, orange, pristine, cut, dented, new or old, to talk about the abuse we have recently been subjected to at the Valle Escondido Golf Course.

As you all know, we golf balls have been carefully designed to withstand and actually enjoy being struck solidly by metal objects and hurtled into the air to fly gracefully and majestically onto fairways and greens. There we can land softly and patiently await the feel of the next good whack. Of late though, this has not been occurring. I don't want to name names for fear I might be exposed and put into play by these next, but four players in particular have given rise to acts of golf abomination so dastardly that - if I may borrow a phrase from Hunter Thompson - I am choosing to call "Fear and Loathing in Valle Escondido." These...these...people - I'm having trouble calling them players - continually refuse to strike us properly and firmly on our centers so that we can reward them with sounds like thock and whoosh which indicate they have done well. Instead they thrash away like primitives new to club wielding and punish us with a series of blows that they refer to as "thin, fat, sliced, hooked, chunked, topped and damned near whiffed" but to us are simply pain. We are not meant to spin sideways as we fly through the air. We are not meant to go bouncing from the tee. We are not meant to roll far beyond the holes we seek. No, we are meant, instead, to be guided methodically towards our goal with no more than four thumpings along the way; an occassional five tolerated. These play...no - wait, I'm going to use the correct if somewhat profane term on condition that you do not tell the orb youngsters and frighten them in their sleeves - these DUFFERS have of late been carding sixes and sevens on a regular basis. Little wonder that we flee into the jungle and dive into lakes and streams. Hiding is our only recourse. By doing so we spread the suffering over several of our kind and no one ball has to bear the abuse for more than two or three holes.

I offer this as a warning to all the balls in Boquete including Noodles, Nikes, Range and Brand X. If you find yourself in a bag owned by any of a foursome with these nicknames: D.B (double bogey) Johnson, Woowoo Where-did-it-go Charly, RTGFKAR (routinely topping golfballs from kinetic action reactions) and Doc What-the hell-was-that, run I tell you, run for your life! Fall out of the bag in the parking lot and roll under the car. Don't come out of the ball washer. Seek the nearest pond or puddle. Leap quietly from the cart. In short, get lost, get lost, get lost. It's your only hope.