LOST BALLS IN ITALY – DI ROBERTO VAN HEUGTEN

Dear fellow Trolleypushers!

I’ll introduce this letter in a way once was defined confidential text, one of those items that in times of email and selfdestroying chats is no longer used in human communication (I say: unfortunately).

This short story is dedicated to whom are so involved in game of golf that become use to loose loads of objects on his beloved courses.

Hands up who has never left a 56° wedge on the green collar after shooting out from a bunker, or a woods-head cover forgotten along the fairway or, simplifying, clothing accessories – like a cap or a jacket – on chair in clubhouse.

After all, golf is a sport of humans, that so as they are, their defects are often more evidence than qualities. C’est la vie.

In our beloved golfclubs, the “lost and found” office is usually located in the caddie-master area. They are also in charge to receive lost objects by gentlemen – they also fellow trolleypushers – that walked afterwards the abandon of objects on the course. The amount of those items – in quantity and value – is quiet impressive!

A few years ago I was a member of one of the largest green fee sellers in my golf area; tens of thousands of players still walk on its paths every year with their precious objects in their bags. In the caddy-master area, the caddies carefully kept – who knows if a few years later someone might have the nice idea of going back to ask for that stupid penguin-shaped headdress – hundreds of objects of all kinds.

Telling more, everyone of us has lost in time something really important, moretheless some affective object. That’s what I’ll tell you in next rows, a short chronicle about an annoying event that I remember yet with undisguised anger.

A website managed by a portuguese guy sells items built with bamboo, that you can arrange with personal details. Randomly found, it pushed me so much curiosity than I decided to buy a gift for myself: a box with 100 tees in organic material, biodegradable and respective of environment. What I put as personal detail? Just a sentence that shows clearly my golfer ability: “Roberto, the duffer”.

Order arrived in a few days, price was very cheap, I began to use them showing with enthusiasm to friends the sentence, a silent but sincere witness of my low ability on the teeshots.

Then…

Once I decided to play nine holes in the most famous golf course of south Lake Garda, that one where you can see from the clubhouse the entire morenic amphitheater around and you’re kissed on the forehead by beutiness of environment.

How it happened… never understood. Fallen by golfbag, left on ground and forgotten there… the result was that at the end of the round my precious box of bamboo tees was lost.

Waited the necessary time to ask in reception and caddie-master, I came in knowledge that non always the rear trolleypushers are gentle people, so I went to buy a basical bamboo-tees box and the issue was closed.

But that is not all!

I remember to have moved golfclubs and car in a nearby winery in Valtènesi, where I conceeded to myself a delicious stop based on Chiaretto and Groppello tasting, with some appetizers based on local produced cheese, a tasty way to pay homage to the loss and to get to know another very important piece of my homeland.

So, what else?

Just a suggestion: have care of your precious instruments, dear fellow of fairways walking.

But also in case that you never lose objects, always remember that in Italy, in the nearbounds of every golf course there’s at least one tasty place where you can drive to try something unforgettable!

See you on the hole one!

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Roberto Van Heugten
Italy4golf Italian Ambassador
buonavita.me