I was driving to my home course when my car started acting weird. Even when I hit the gas hard, my car wouldn’t go over 20 mph. Then the main monitor went bananas. “Check your transmission system” came up in bright orange letters. Then “Check engine!” “Check oil pressure!” “Check ABS System!”. Finally, every idiot light on the dashboard turned on.

Turn around and get the car home, Patty!

But I was playing with three of my favorite people in a match I’d been looking forward to all week so…I kept going. I never went over 20 mph, but I made it to the course. I hoped that the lights would reset after the round, but nope, turns out I had a big problem.

Actually, turns out I had an even bigger problem. This was Saturday and I couldn’t take the car in for service until Monday, so how was I going to get to one of New York’s premiere Donald Ross courses which I was scheduled to play the next day?

Borrow Rebecca’s car, of course. She was just going to some luncheon (yes, I hear how dismissive that sounds) so I made her ask a friend to pick her up so I could use her car.

I put my clubs in her trunk and off I went. But now her car felt weird! When I went over 50 mph, the right front wheel started shaking and felt like it was going to fall off! You might think that’s crazy, but this happened to her last car! Same wheel – right front. It didn’t quite fall off the last time, but my mechanic pulled it off the axle without loosening a lug nut. Which beckons the question: Why would we buy the same exact make and model of a car when the last one’s tire almost fell off? But that’s a topic for another day.

The topic for today is, I, once again, didn’t turn around. Even with facing a 1 ½ hour drive, I didn’t turn around. This course has been on my bucket list for years, and I had just made up my mind that if I didn’t get to play it, the reason was going to be because my tire fell off, not because I turned around.

So, here’s where the question “Would I die for golf?” comes in. I was once a passenger in a car whose driver wouldn’t go over 55mph on the Long Island Expressway. I remember thinking that jumping out of a plane would be less dangerous than doing 55 on the LIE.  And here I was doing 50 on an even faster highway. I was, indeed, a driving hazard. People honked at me, people passed me dangerously, tractor trailers blew by me.

But I kept going.

Look, I’m not saying this was the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but if I did risk my life for two great rounds of golf (one a bucket list), it was worth it. Although, as punishment, I get to sit here on Monday, at the dealership service station, waiting for not one, but two cars to be fixed.