The Lovely Missus O’Reilly
July 22, 2007I always find it amazing that when we, as humans, are in situations which make major demands on the mind and soul it can seem torturous, but when we look back at the same events years later these trials can become sources of unmatched amusement and laughter. Such is the case of today’s tale of the lovely Missus O’Reilly.
Every summer we used to holiday in one of Irelands most famous beach resorts. Well, to be more precise, one of Ireland’s most famous beach “GOLF” resorts. My father was and still is a golf nut and the game has always been a part of our family life. Each weekend he would play in some or other tournament and more often than not would arrive home with a trophy or some other prize. And it seemed that our holidays would coincidentally coincide with one of the clubs annual tournaments. Being creatures of habit, we would stay at the same village lodgings for three weeks every year. The rooms were very comfortable, the homemade food delicious and the Proprietor “Missus O’Reilly” was an angel on Earth. We would always arrive on Friday and I would await my Demonic Saturday encounter like some death row prisoner
Saturday morning, 8:00 a.m, a succession of Tommy gun knocks on my bedroom door.
“Are you up yet, young man?” she would chirp excitedly.
I knew that pretending to be asleep just wouldn’t work, so I cleared my throat, rubbed the sand from my eyes and answered: “I’m on the way.”
“Good” she would reply, “because your breakfast is getting cold and we don’t want to be late.”
There were two courses in this village, one was the professional players’ course and the other was what I like to call the “Woodcutters” course. Missus O’Reilly was a member of the latter and she was retired, so for the three weeks that I was there we would play a round of Golf every day.
“Same rules as last year, I take it?” she would say, suddenly becoming scarily serious.
“I suppose” I said.
“Of course you have gotten bigger and stronger” she would grumble. “It’s only fair that you give me an extra shot advantage per hole this year”.
“But…” I would try to interject.
“Now… Now…temper temper..” she would snap hastily.
Of course she was right, I had gotten taller and stronger, but I felt that the seven shots per hole advantage from the previous year was more than adequate. Already feeling defeat, I motioned for her to tee up and take her shot. I say “shot” because she never used woods. She had a putter, a wedge, a seven iron and something that vaguely resembled a three iron. Now, I’ve seen some pretty peculiar swings in my time but Mrs. O’Reilly’s took the biscuit. Her right foot was basically O.K. but her left foot was pointing towards the pin. She would take a deep breath and utter: “keep an eye on it, won’t you?” Her arms would swing stiffly back and suddenly stop, pointing skyward, for about ten seconds, then they would come down and after striking the ball she would do what appeared to be a half drunken pirouette while struggling to keep her balance. The ball appeared to scurry along the ground in terror as it tried to escape the executioners axe and stop ten yards away. It was the dreaded moment I had awaited. I put both my hands over my head as the red-faced demon threw the pseudo three iron randomly upwards. A string of obscenities left this normally passive woman’s mouth that a drunken sailor would be ashamed to whisper.
“Where did it go?….Where did it go?…I told you to keep an eye on it.” she would scream with demented cookie monster eyes. ”If you can’t even help an ol’ lady why do you bother dragging me here” she would yell. Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde eat your heart out. She would then stand still for a few minutes and say: “I believe it’s your shot or do you wish to keep me standing here all day?” Timidly, I would extract my driver from my bag and square up to the ball. THWHACK ! The ball would sail high towards the middle of the fairway. “Fluke” she would hiss through her teeth and walk away briskly leaving me on the tee. After we finally located her ball in light rough she would grab her wedge, take her stance and always come down too fat. BUMMPH! Her body would shake, the ball would go another five yards and a divot the size of Manhattan followed by a muddy club would make their way towards the heavens accompanied by Missus O’Reilly’s chorus of profanity. This would continue until we reached the green where suddenly the persona of the “lovely Missus O’Reilly” would return as quickly as it had left. The green is where she played like a professional golfer, and she knew it too. She would smirk as she sank a really long, difficult putt that I could never have sunk.
“See that young man” she would say with pride, “And you, with your big fancy drives.”
“You would be better off practicing your short game and not bullying the elderly.” she would say while cackling like a sea witch and then she would punch me on the shoulder as we headed towards the next tee. These antics would continue for the whole day she would average fifteen strokes per hole on our daily five and a half hour rounds of Golf. And woe betides the golfers waiting behind that would tell us to hurry up.
On returning to the guesthouse we would all sit down to dinner
“Would you like some more tea, pet?” she would chime angelically. My parents would smile at the lovely Missus O’Reilly and her kind nature. And as I tried to sneak off to bed after my supper her head would pop out from the kitchen “So, young man, we’ll see each other at 8:00 a.m.” And her head would disappear before I could answer.
As far as I know, Missus O’Reilly has passed away since my childhood holidays but despite my dreaded fear I never came to any harm playing with Missus O’Reilly and I got to see some of the more positive and negative sides of the game. Back To Top Of Page