Golf At Sharks With Ralf And Shawn (Part 2)

Ralf Behind The Wheel

Filing Ralf’s car boot up with Shawn’s belongings I decided to bring along my DKNY bucket hat and blue shaded glasses. Wearing them as a combination and a different look I wasn’t too sure of the reaction I would receive but I knew that if there was any place to be in full view, Menangle Markets would be it. There is enough causality around that area for me to stand out a touch. Jumping into the back seat of Ralf’s car he greeted me and remarked upon my new look.

He wasn’t too wrapped in it which was great as it didn’t stand out too much but later in the trip Ralf did try it on. There was a time when I lent it to Shawn so he could wear for a little while and that’s when Ralf decided to wear it for a little while, to see if it would suit him. Ralf was being his usual aggressive self on the highway towards Menangle Markets.

Being stuck behind someone that was doing 20 Km/h under the limit Ralf started getting aggravated, yelling out his importunate abuse to the oblivious driver. Ostentatious as he in his bid to look the aggressor, we didn’t really pay much attention but to laugh at Ralf with each other in his doing something stupid. “Idiots why don’t they learn to drive faster” Ralf shouted, shedding the irony that he himself was a Sunday driver and that he was rather clueless on his driving expertise. Mr. Around the block as we like to call him.

Wandering Menangle Markets

When arriving at Menangle Markets we didn’t have any sort of strategy or game plan, Ralf just wanted to head down there just for something to do. Feeling comfortable in what I was wearing there weren’t too much people that looked at me and none of them that stared at me. All in all, my new style didn’t look like it received any bad wrap, only smirks on some bystanders who thought my style was comical.

Walking around to all the different stalls Ralf parked himself at a place that dealt with Playstation games. In that time Shawn and I headed to the stall which stocked games for the IBM and had a little look around. There were all little shops we stopped at in jest to look at glasses or oddities which would sparsely cost a coin. There wasn’t as great a female turnout as I would have liked to expect but I did chance to notice a good looking girl or two.

With my new bucket hat I felt without intimidation and as you can hide yourself behind glasses, I did create a new image and walk. It just felt good how I had the bucket cap halfway over my eyes so that you could only see the bottom half of my glasses. Having to lift my head somewhat to see properly it felt cool how I would walk around with my head down and people thinking that I couldn’t see where I was headed.

Star Wars On Canvas

Before the three of us decided to leave Menangle Markets after an hour we took a look at a stall where an artist had his paintings on show. Twain did I see of great pictures, one being of Star Wars, the other being a fantasy picture. The picture from Star Wars was actually like that picture of ‘The Truman Show’. It constituted of small frames from the film placed according to color and difference on the canvas.

All up, there would be around 200 different frames from all the star wars movies to date and if you walked backwards you could see one of the characters from the movie, the Ewok kind of guy. Desiring to find out how much this poster would cost I couldn’t distinguish who was the seller so we just headed for the car and onto our next unknown adventure.

A Golf Range Idea

The planned venture had concluded and now as we drove around aimlessly in Ralf’s errant way I got the urge to play on a golf range. This came to me upon passing the golf range at Macarthur Square and seeing it from a distance I suggested it. Ralf and Shawn were both taken back my request but then as I heard “You know that’s not too bad an idea, in fact that’s a great idea” I figured that it was a favorable notion.

“What made you think of that” Ralf asked as he knew I wasn’t into golf at all. Optimistically, I gathered that it would be a good exploit and I felt like doing something new. However, as Ralf is with his pointless expeditions, he sought to head to a golf range called ‘Sharks’ instead of the one at Macarthur Square University. Ralf boasted how it was three levels high but he didn’t include the fact that we had to travel more than an hour through Sunday traffic just to get there.

Shawn and I tried to hold off as best we could for the whole trip but Shawn couldn’t help but to utter “This is a hell of a long way to travel just to play golf”. The hilarity of the situation is in the fact that ‘Sharks’ was just outside of Liverpool and as it would have taken someone with a good handle on driving no more than half an hour, it took Ralf more than an hour.

Hungry Jacks Detour

Suggesting that we head to a food outlet before venturing off to the golf range, it was another idea well met by everyone in the car. The three of us now had the hunger for munchies as we were somewhat indecisive on where to head. The choices were either Macdonald’s or Hungry Jacks but seeming I wanted to try something new, Ralf drove us to Hungry Jack’s. Parking the car instead of heading through the drive-through we made our entry, me without my bucket hat on.

Deciding to give that rest a look as not to shock people we made our way inside and stood in line, counting our money and preparing for our meal. Each of us bought ourselves a meal and as I told the girl I only had $5 in hand and asking for the juice to be replaced she ended up bringing the price up to $5.30.

This cheesed me off a bit because I had to reopen my wallet but as I walked my food over to where Shawn was sitting I started to dig in. Beginning on the fries where I wasn’t asked if I wanted salt, I found them to be a bit saline. Ralf sat down with a big laugh as he pointed over to a girl and noted he just a death stare from her boyfriend.

Apparently, Ralf was checking her legs out whilst waiting in line, figuring they looked alright. As he looked up from her legs and past her skirt he noticed two beady eyes staring at him and belonging to her boyfriend. Tenacious they were in animosity as you could almost hear him say “Don’t look at my woman’s legs”. Ralf thought it was funny because of the mean look he received from someone he could as well have broken. However, we didn’t do much more than glance over and laugh to ourselves at Ralf’s obviousness.

A Free Burger

Whilst eating our meals an older lady came to our desk and carrying an extra order she asked “Did one of you order this meal”. When noticing that we already had our meal and that they had made an extra one we were favored with her asking “Well, do you want another meal for free”. Not knocking back free food Shawn took the burger as I took the rest of the chips.

Chowing them down for the next couple of minutes as Ralf talked amongst a variance of topics, Shawn decided to share half the burger he received with me. Ralf was blabbing on about something regarding sex and all I could think about as he kept using obscene language was all the people that were having trouble digesting their food as a result of his words. However, I also gathered they wouldn’t try to intervene with big old black Ralf, go figure…

Borrowed Clubs For Revenge

Reaching ‘Sharks’ after our long time in anticipation we made our long awaited entry into the place. Before leaving Ralf brought various golf clubs from his house and as we were joking around about Keith, Shawn decided to bring Keith’s golf clubs he had previously borrowed. In those golf clubs was a very expensive wood driver that was fairly light and I figured, easily breakable. Shawn was still detestable to Keith’s actions on Saturday night and it showed in how he spoke and how he wanted to get even in some small way.

“Let’s call Keith, quickly tell him that we’re borrowing his clubs again and hang up before he can say anything” Shawn suggested. “Or, we could just take his clubs and not tell him at all” he added, raising the curves to his grin as he unleashed a potent repugnance. Therefore, we just ended up taking Keith’s clubs without warning him beforehand. This was Shawn’s way of getting back at Keith as the dislike for Keith’s stupidity and selfish acts have overweighed any mentality he might have in given situations.

My First Golf Swings

To quickly speak of the golf range, we were shown in by an Asian guy behind the counter, shown where to buy fifty balls for $5 and were then left to our own devices. Ralf wanted to head up to the third level so we done so as the both of them set up on the left hand side of the range, next to each other. Sitting myself down and watching as they swung a couple Shawn enticed me to have a swing or two.

At first I was “Nah, it’s alright” but after a couple of seconds I pushed him across for my first ever real attempt at hitting a golf ball. In my mind I was constantly thinking that I would hit this ball miles away and I would be dubbed a miracle man in my first attempt at hitting a golf ball. However, as I was in my hour of amateurism I completely missed hitting the ball first time round.

Shawn yelled out “Eh-he” in encouragement as I missed but my second touch was a tad more favorable. This time around the ball dropped 20 meters down on the ground and it was a shit shot but slowly, I was learning. As Shawn and Ralf kept swinging Shawn achieved the longest drives from the both of them. Ralf had the knack of hitting them long and over one of the side nets with their topspin.

Shawn drove them long and hard for a considerable amount of time and then change to chip shots so he could try for the targets on the course. Having myself another couple of shots as Shawn went to buy some more balls I hit one ball considerably good, just over 150 meters. Ralf taught me a touch of how to swing the club and when Shawn came back he also taught me a touch. Even though I’ll probably never be playing again or in quite some time, it’s useful to know these tips.

The hour we spent there was pleasant, looking out into the calm and sunny day, watching all the balls fly out from underneath our level. After some guy lost control of his club in which it spun twenty meters onto the course we decided to make haste for home. Some time before we were leaving all Lebanese folk made their way onto the range and showed their true Leb colors in respect to being show-offs and as if a camera was constantly in front of them saying “Act for me”. Lebanese, they’re just one of those unmistakable nationalities…