Week # Story, Brad's Sacrifice


This is a link to the updated and revised story. Link

Brad was one of the top amateurs in the game of golf, but had noticed his game falling leading to him becoming worse and worse. All of his life he had struggled hitting his driver, but now it was worse than ever leading him to having the yips with it. Brad had tried every remedy that he and his instructor could think of, his efforts still were seeming to be just a waste of time. Frustrated and ready to give up the game for good Brad turned to his last resort, asking the gods for help. To do so he must offer them a great sacrifice so that they may be pleased and decide to help him prevail over the yips. In order for Brad to perform the sacrificial ritual he must first break his favorite driver in half and then surround it with himself and all of his current teammates forming a circle. The next step for Brad was to set the driver on fire so that he may be able to please the gods. The fire must stay lit for at least two hours or the gods would think of Brad as impatient and refuse to help him out. After two hours when the fire was put out the next and final step was for Brad to lay the driver down to rest by burning it in its own grave to put to bed his former struggles with it. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva came down after he had buried the driver and announced to him that they were pleased with his sacrifice and that in one week’s time he would be able to hit his driver just as well as any other club in his bag. The only stipulation of their gift is that if Brad ever cursed the gods after hitting his driver he would go back to hitting it as poorly as he did before the sacrifice.


Authors Note- This is my version of Dasharatha's Sons by Donald A. Mackenzie where Dasharatha provides a horse sacrifice to the gods so that he may be granted a heir to his throne since he was unable to father a child with his queens. I changed t by making it about a golfer sacrificing a club to help him improve

Dasharatha's Sons, Donald A. Mackenzie, Source

                                                              Broken Driver, source

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 9, 2018 at 12:31 PM

    Hi Riley,

    This was such a fun story to read. The most impactful part of the story, in my opinion, was the detail of the sacrifice that must be committed in order to become good at golf again. My favorite sentence in the story was the part in which Brad must keep the fire lit for two hours or he would be seen as impatient. This is truly quite the challenge. Perhaps he was impatient, and this lead to his golf struggles. Would it be possible to include some dialogue throughout the buildup to the sacrifice? I think this might make the story a bit more impactful as the reader can truly get a sense of his frustrations leading him to perform a sacrifice. I also enjoyed how you ended the story by making it clear that the sacrifice was not a complete and total fix. Overall, great job on this story.

    -Andy McDowell

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  2. UnknownSeptember 10, 2018 at 1:56 AM

    Hey Riley! It’s awesome that you managed to work your love of golf and your experience with golf into writing a take on Dasharatha’s Sons! I will say, that as someone who has no knowledge of golf, I don’t know what yips are or what a driver is, other than that they have something to do with golf, so maybe try to explain those terms?

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  3. Jessica HDecember 7, 2018 at 9:41 AM

    Hi Riley! I'm glad I read your introduction first so I could see the connection between this story and your love for golf! This story was cute and fun to read. I especially like that he got his teammates involved in helping him get better. Although it was ultimately the Gods' blessings that improved Brad's skill, the idea that you need your team's support to get better is very true.

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