MICHAEL KIRAL

Good afternoon, I am Dr. Howie Shankum and I’m here today with my patient, Mr. Tungsten Core. Good day, Mr. Core, how are you? Not too good. It’s not an easy time being a golf ball. Think about having a job where you get clubbed around a course and finish by dropping four inches into a dark hole. Eighteen or more times every day. That doesn’t sound good. Tell me about it. I mean, how would you like to go through life covered with dimples? What am I, a Florida election ballot? And how about the way we are categorized? One, two or three pieces? It makes us sound like bathing suits. We may be covered with balata but we still are soft in the inside. At least that’s the way we’re promoted nowadays. It’s not like the old days when we were stuffed with feathers. I imagine with the way golf is skyrocketing these days, you are extremely popular. That’s true but it doesn’t mean we are getting treated any better. Just a few weeks ago, Phil Mickelson hooked one of my cousins into the woods in a playoff and pleaded for him to hit a tree. And this after he lost one of us in the woods. Do you know what it’s like to be abandoned out there? And my cousin was a professional ball, playing with the world’s best golfers. It’s worse for us everyday types. We get chili dipped more than a tortilla chip. We get bounced off everything from trees to ducks to golf carts. Oh and golfers may think it’s great to have us go bounding down a cart path so they can get closer to the hole. Think about how we feel hitting that hard concrete and getting all scraped up. And how are we rewarded for this selfless act? Normally we get discarded as soon as the hole is over. Those are the lucky ones. How about us poor souls who get dumped into a water hazard? Then we can’t even rest in peace. We get collected and are resold as recycled balls. What, you think we are aluminum cans? When we are not in the water, we are in sand traps. How would you like to go around with sand on your skin? And how about those of us who don’t even get to see the beauty of a golf course? Instead, we are assigned the task of being range balls. Even the name seems degrading. Getting scrapped off one of those uncomfortable mats, then getting picked up like a piece of corn being combined to be hit over and over again. Not much of a way to make a living is it? No. And we have it tough even before we get in the bag. We are marked with a number as soon as we are produced and that is literally our lot in life. There are even some golfers who won’t use one of us because of our numbers. Like being a “4” is the reason you bogeyed the hole. Guess it couldn’t be because you have a swing that makes Jim Furyk’s a textbook one. Then there are the rules imposed on us. We can’t be smaller than 1.68 inches in diameter but also can’t be heavier than 1.62 ounces. Do you know how hard it is to stay on that kind of diet especially when we are expected to stay round? We even have restrictions on how far we can go when we are hit. Not like that applies when Tiger Woods uses one of us. Speaking of Woods, you would think with all the money and attention we have earned for him he would treat us better. But there he is on national television bouncing one of us on a club, then swatting us down the course. Do you know how dizzying that is? But there has to be some benefits in your profession? Oh, there is. We get to play on the best courses without paying a single greens fee. We hang around guys like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Woods. And there is nothing like landing in the fairway during a major with tens of thousands in the gallery. But the best part of the job may be sliding 10 feet past a hole and costing some golfer who has been abusing you the whole day a match with money on the line. Take that for wanting us to hit a tree for you.