The caddies didn’t believe it was Jesus Christ, not at first.
True, John Daly said he had asked him to come down for some golf. John said he had offered up some prayers asking for help with his drinking and gambling problems. Next thing he knows, Jesus had qualified to play in the Masters.
“I haven’t met him yet,” Daly told Sports Illustrated. “I’ve been in court dealing with my fourth wife’s demand for increased alimony, but I’ve read a little about him and I’m eager to talk to him in person.”
By then a rusty 1963 Corvair wheezed into view, the engine sputtering before dying in the groundskeepers parking area. When a man giving off a glow of radiant light stepped out of the car, we knew he was a special chap who put no value in transportation safety.
Jesus was mobbed, first by tens, then hundreds, all asking for autographs that they could sell on E-Bay. He wore blue jeans, a Texas Aggie T-shirt, and a WWJD? Wristband. “What Would Jesus Do?” shouted a woman in the crowd.
“Nah,” Christ said with a laugh. “What Would Jack Do? My Dad and I are huge Nicklaus fans. Not only could he play golf, but also he designs great courses. We’re kind of partial to creative talent.”
Christ continued, “Money is ruining sports. Man cannot serve two masters,”
The crowd was a little puzzled by the masters thing. “Everyone knows there is only one Masters Golf Tournament,” Clete Purcell, a tournament official, said.
“Let’s tee-em up,” Christ said, walking over and putting his arm around Daly who wept uncontrollably because of the forgiving and unconditional love he felt from Jesus.
Christ gave Daly the honors. Shaken-up by his encounter with Jesus, Daly hit a dogleg hook into the woods. Jesus, nodding empathetically toward Daly, quickly approached his ball. With no practice swing, he struck the ball. Ka-Boom! The ball took off like Elijah’s chariot and zoomed upward and onward, quickly rising higher and higher disappearing behind an immense cloud that flashed with lightening.
“Out of practice, Christ said. “ I need to remember to reduce the power in my swing when I’m here on earth.”
He shrugged, smiled toward the crowd, and placed a second ball on the tee. His next shot zoomed 350 yards, landing in the middle of the fairway.
The huge crowd following him must have numbered at least 5,000. They were surprised to discover that Christ kept up a running banter as he played. “Keeps me loose,” Christ explained.
“I used to play golf just about everyday—except Sundays, of course—with Adam. Talk about a beautiful course! No one could top the one we had in Eden. The only problem was the snake kept swallowing the ball. After Eve came along, Adam had so many ‘honey-do’ projects he didn’t have time for golf.”
Teeing-up for the fifth hole, he continued, “ I didn’t play again until Moses came to Midian. That was a rough course. Bushes everywhere. Moses always took a mighty swing trying to get the ball from the tee-box to the green so he wouldn’t have to probe around in the bushes. One day he took a prodigious swing and the ball sailed right over the green. That’s when Moses had his ‘burning bush’ experience and had to take the next camel to Egypt.”
On the sixth hole, Christ hit his first shot into some tall grass. The ball rested under a tree limb. Without hesitation, Christ took a vicious swing. The ball ricocheted off the tree limb, hit a fairway marker, careened off a rock, and bounded into the middle of the fairway. Christ shrugged his shoulders, looked toward the crowd, then up to heaven. “Praise God,” he sang out.
The seventh hole brought near disaster. Hitting a two-iron, Christ sliced his ball into a lake. He absentmindedly walked on top of the lake and fished the ball out of the water, all the time talking, “I dearly wanted to play a round of golf with David. Dad thought he would play well—liked his heart. But with Bathsheba, Nathan, and Absalom crowding his schedule, he never could find the time for golf.”
With a fluid swing, Christ hit the ball off the top of the water. The ball left his club crisply never rising higher than five feet until it glanced off the water and skipped three times onto dry land.
Without a pause Jesus continued, “I tried a game or two with the prophets—what bores. They would ruin the fun by telling you where the ball was going before you hit it.”
Christ continued, “After that, I got a little busy and it wasn’t until the dark ages that I tried to play again. I wanted to play with Richard-the-Lion-Hearted—what a great name for a golfer—that’s where Earl Woods came up with Tiger’s name—but Richard couldn’t play a lick what with all that armor he wore.”
Taking the seven-iron out of the bag, he hit the ball three hundred feet where it landed on the green and rolled into the cup for a birdie. By then the crowds kept getting larger and larger blocking play. As the multitude swelled, the Masters Committee Chairman asked Christ to leave. “No problem,” Christ said, “I’m used to rapid departures. I just wish I could have played Amen Corner.”
When asked if he wanted a ride, He replied with a twinkle in his eye, “Thanks, but no need.” He found Daly in the crowd rounding up people for an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter. Christ hugged him. With that, there was a blinding flash and they were gone.
The line on Christ: five pars, one bogie, one birdie, and one saved soul.
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