Both golf and shooting can be deeply frustrating. One day, everything seems to be going splendidly and you find yourself shrugging off the compliments of your companions while secretly beaming with pride; the next day, just when you feel that you've cracked the sport, it all falls to pieces and the ground refuses to open up and swallow you and your embarrassment. Worse, your same friends struggle with increasingly meeker words of encouragement to improve your spirits.
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I was having a bad day. My golf shots bore no resemblance to what I could see in my mind's eye. Balls were lost in bushes, the lake acted like a magnet and when I eventually reached the green, I might as well have been using a shillelagh as a putter.
My tee shot off the eighth behaved as if the ball had spotted the flag and decided to swerve off course like a man spotting his ex-wife. I trudged towards the clump of trees where it had come to rest, utterly despondent and threatening my clubs with eBay. But something caught my eye while
I was looking for the ball. It was a cep, the most prized of all wild mushrooms and it wasn't alone-I've never found so many. Supper was beyond delicious. That's got to rank as the best golf shot of my life.
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