Mike Cox My second golf outing of 2005 was historically significant but not for a good reason. On the first Wednesday in February, I played in conditions worse than I’ve ever been subjected to.

I’m nearing my 55th year and have been chasing the little ball around for quite some time. I like to play when the weather is warm. It would suit me if I never wore another pair of long pants on the golf course. (Or anywhere else, to tell the truth.)

Lately, I’ve been coerced into playing when the weather is cool more times than I want to admit, so I’ve become accustomed to wearing a wind jacket with long sleeves underneath. Tears from cold wind and stinging hands happen more often than they used to. But the history making outing was something new; and it was unbearable.

First of all, I hate cold weather. I went deer hunting a few times in my youth when the weather was miserable, but I was dressed like Randy from A Christmas Story . I attended a few college football games where I was extremely cold, but that was worth it, and I consumed anti–freeze. To me, 60 is a good low temperature, and I prefer sweating to shivering. That’s why I live in the South, rather than the frozen tundra above the Mason Dixon Line.

But there I was, along with two other guys just as stupid. The temperature was barely 40 and there was no sun. Wind howled most of the day. Early in the back nine, it started to rain, then sleet.

The forecast for Thursday, our regular golf day, which, amazingly, turned out to be correct, was for cold rain. So instead of waiting a week, we decided to try to golf on Wednesday, which isn’t a golf day. We must have angered the gods of work and play.

The balls were so cold it felt like we were hitting rocks. We lost our will to compete on number three. If the temperature had dropped just a bit, we wouldn’t have had to worry about the lake; it would have frozen over. At one point, I swear I heard packs of hungry wolves howling just out of sight.

Why didn’t we just stop? I can’t answer that. The idea never came up. We could have quit at the turn, but no one suggested such a thing, so we kept playing. And I know I shouldn’t whine. Lots of guys play in worse conditions. But not me, and not when I change my schedule in order to do it.

In the end, we played a complete round and lost no extremities to frostbite. We have another story to tell and only a few emotional scars. The fourth member of our group who called in sick (the one who suggested we play on Wednesday in the first place) gave us a reason to stay resolute when things were unbearable. I won’t tell you what we called him...this is a family newspaper.