May 31, 2003 - Saturday
"Playing golf is my favorite thing," said Harry this afternoon after his nap. I'm pretty sure that's not entirely true, but I guess for a moment in time it was and that yesterday was a success. Moreover, Harry wanted to play again and frequently made sure we understood that.

Round Two went about the same as round one,with Harry's bubbling enthusiasm leading our foursome around the course, literally and figuratively. I played a stroke better. Mommy played a couple worse. Harry? Well, it's hard to tell. Keeping score wasn't really possible the way he played, but he probably did about the same with one amazing exception. He had two consecutive holes-in-one. It was the seventeenth and he played it twice. That repeating of holes happened throughout the round and was a combination of Harry's increasing comfort and familiarity with the place and the fact that it was a little more crowded and that we needed to linger in order to stay a safe distance behind the group in front of us. But, that doesn't diminish the remarkable feat of two shots, two completely different (and surely random) approaches to the 17th hole, hit from the "tee" area that ended in the hole. I was quite effusive with Harry about what he had done both times, but interestingly, I'm not sure he quite understood how amazing it was. Well, of course, he didn't. He clearly understands that the object of the game is getting the ball in the hole, but I'm not sure the idea of "fewest shots" registers at all. Anyway, he was either quite modest about his holes-in-one (beyond a fairly straightforward "yeah, I made a great shot") or just didn't get it.

Jeremy, on the 13th hole as we lingered to let the elderly couple ahead of us move along, for the first time in two rounds put his ball down on the putting surface and took a few gentle one-handed swings with the club that he had thus far had firmly tucked under his shoulder. They were just like he the swings he takes with the plastic clubs at home except that this club his heavier and thus slower moving in his hand.. He "played" that way off and on for the remaining five holes. Then, like yesterday, he was outright traumatized by the need to relinquish the ball and putter in the club house at the end. The woman from yesterday and another younger woman were both extremely moved by pitiful Jeremy's anguish and were both clearly about to offer him his ball back. But we had the one from yesterday in the car and thanked them just the same. It turned out we actually had left the ball in another bag and that made the ride home a little louder than we expected. Poor Jeremy, he just wanted a ball. Fortunately, we lived very close.


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