If they could talk, what would the day-care babies be saying to each other when their fathers are playing down the stretch?
They’re probably discussing how one of them will soon be whisked away to join all that hugging and kissing on the last green, when they’d sooner be left alone.
Here’s a guess at a Sunday afternoon conversation …
“We’ve got less than an hour before the mums arrive to smarten us up … just in case,” says an irritated infant. “With so much coughing and spluttering going on outside, I think we’d be well within our rights to put up a notice saying, ‘Do not disturb.’”
“The TV people are never going to let that happen,” explains an adjacent baby. “They think it’s a great gimmick to get us involved. At some stage, one of us needs to point out that we’re the only ones ’round here who aren’t getting paid.”
“Scottie Scheffler and his wife, Meredith, played ‘pass the parcel’ with Bennett when Scottie won whatever it was recently. How the cameramen loved that, especially when poor Bennett started bawling his head off.
“He did his best to keep out of the way the next time.” (Please see the diaper story from the Memorial Tournament.)
“Let me tell you what happened when my dad won,” intervenes a toddler who is desperate to recall his bad experience. “The little lad who’s sitting in the corner nicked my Happy Faces hammer game while I was on the green. Afterwards, my mum told me to let him keep it because he’d started to cry. I was crying, too, but that didn’t seem to worry her.”
“Sharing toys doesn’t work,” mutters a child who has just tuned in to the conversation. “That Scottie Scheffler is always coming into the day-care centre. The other morning, when he was admiring my dinosaur cubes, I told him to go and practise his putting.”
“There’s no end to the things that can go wrong,” says a bossy baby called Sally. “My mum came and collected me when my dad was on the point of winning. Then he four-putted the 18th and lost. I found it very embarrassing.”
“I doubt your dad felt great,” comes a murmur from the far end of the room.
“If you watch people throwing rubbish in a bin, you don’t see them taking three or four attempts to get the job done,” reasons the bossy one.
“Do we have to watch the golf on TV this afternoon,” asks a day-care assistant called Emily. “I think the babies would sooner watch ‘Bluey.’”
“As a matter of fact, I’d like to watch it too,” says the boss.
“You do that with the 2-year-olds,” suggests Emily “and I’ll take the little ones out to play in the bunker. The one that’s just been raked.”
“Great idea,” chortle the babes as they put on their boots
It’s 5 o’clock and news has reached the day-care centre of a possible three- or even five-way play-off. A group of relations have arrived at the door to supervise the smartening-up process, only to be told by a puffing and panting referee that he has an announcement to make.
“A play-off won’t be necessary,” he begins. “The bunker on the first of the play-off holes is full of buckets, spades and bawling babies.
“Bennett Scheffler is back in the limelight – and everyone’s saying it’s the best finish they’ve ever known.”
Lewine Mair
E-MAIL LEWINE
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