I’ve never put much thought into reincarnation, but I now know what form I’ll take on if there’s any truth in the concept.I’ll return to this world as a dumb plow horse.You know which horse I mean. The one that has a carrot dangling in front of his face that looks too tasty to resist, but he never does get to take a bite of it until his work is complete.I had a tasty-looking carrot placed in front of my face a couple of weeks ago, and it was much too intriguing to ignore.In this case, the carrot I was pursuing came in the form of a head-to-head golf match against an outstanding young golfer from Larchwood named Jessica Snyders.She’s an employee of the Meadow Acres Country Club, and I’ve shared a number of casual conversations with this 20-year-old woman as I gulped down cold beverages after some of my less-than-inspiring efforts on the course.It was from those conversations I learned Ms. Snyders was more than a capable golfer in her own right.A 2004 graduate of West Lyon High School, Jess, as her friends call her, was a four-year letter winner for her school’s girls’ golf team. She was an All-Sioux Land Conference performer as a junior and senior and drew honorable mention honors in league play as a sophomore. As a senior, she won an individual title during district play and missed advancing to Iowa’s state tournament by one stroke in region competition.Heading into last weekend’s Women’s Club Tournament at MACC, Snyders entered the field as the two-time defending club champion. After shooting a course record (a one-under-par 35) a couple of weeks ago, she was tabbed as the prohibitive favorite to win the tournament again.Although her credentials were enough to intimidate a player of limited ability like me on their own, there’s a more impressive addition to Snyders’ golf resume.She has been a member of Minnesota State University-Mankato women’s golf program for the past two years, and rumor has it she’s on the verge of gaining a full scholarship (she currently is drawing partial scholarship funding now) with a good performance during the upcoming fall season.As for myself, I might not be the sharpest tack in the box, but I’m not the dullest one either.I wasn’t going to play this golfing machine without certain incentives. My first was to have Jess hit from the men’s tee boxes alongside me, and the second was to have her give me a four- or five-shot advantage before stepping on the course.I’m thinking Ms. Snyders would have accepted my terms, but she didn’t need to after some friends of mine placed an even bigger carrot in front of my face.Their suggestion, which both sides agreed to put in place for a nine-hole match, called for the college golfer to hit from the men’s tee boxes. I would hit from the women’s tee boxes and wouldn’t receive any incentive strokes.I honestly thought I had a chance to win the match staged last Thursday based on the yardage advantage I would receive by hitting from the shorter tee boxes.Although she probably won’t admit it, some self-doubt may have crept into my opponent’s mind when we matched scores on the first four holes before I gained a one-shot lead, thanks to a two-stroke penalty she incurred on the par-4 fifth hole.If Jess was second-guessing herself after five holes of play, it didn’t show over the final four holes. She reeled off three straight pars before taking a bogey five on the par-4 finishing hole.As anyone who has witnessed my no-talent swing has come to expect, my game abandoned me over the final four holes.My inability to strike an iron cleanly led to a double bogey and a one-shot deficit when the par-3 sixth hole was complete. I dropped another stroke on the seventh hole before totally falling apart on the eighth hole (which featured one swing and a miss when my tee shot found the shade underneath a tree) by taking a triple bogey.I did gain some gratification by making par (with the help of a tee shot that picked up additional yardage by bouncing off a cement cart path like it landed on a trampoline), but it wasn’t enough to keep me from coming up on the short end of a 41-45 tally.Before the day was complete, it became clear that the carrot I thought I would consume by hitting from the reds proved to be nothing more than an illusion.After shooting a 45 from the reds, I registered a 43 from the whites during a league match later in the afternoon.One doesn’t need to be much smarter than a plow horse to figure out I would have been much better off hitting from the whites and accepting some charity strokes from the college player.