Golf Fore the Good

We golfers who play in the North East have a good deal of time on our hands once the weather turns ugly. The diehards continue to play, bundled to the max, but many of us pick and choose our battles at this time of year. We glue ourselves to the weather channel and watch expectantly for a day when the sun shines, albeit weakly, and the winds are not overly frigid. In the interim we live on memories of our past rounds and plans for future exploits.

A few of our local golf legends can articulate detailed accounts of shot by shot action from competitions of years past. I, myself, do not have that kind of mental acuity (nor do I have that much to brag about) but here is one match I just can’t forget…

I used to play quite often with an older gentleman friend. He was a master of chipping and putting and paired perfectly with my power game of distance and little control. Together we were a great team.

One particular day we set up a match, a standard $2 Nassau with dollar junk and automatic presses. Don’t ask me to score those presses. I only know by the time the round is over the card usually looks like a bowling score with more cross hatches on it than I can comprehend.

What I do remember about the day is that by the time the dust settled my friend and I had taken our opponents for $44 on a $2 game. That has to be some kind of record. If you’re ever having a cocktail at a bar in Harwich on Cape Cod it’s possible you might run into a very tall gentleman named Charlie. If you ask him about it, I guarantee, he’ll definitely remember the whooping he took and be laughing, still. It really isn’t about the money. This wasn’t a match that would break the bank for anyone there and all of it, and more, went back on the bar at the 19th hole anyway. But who would have thought, standing on the first tee, that a woman and an old man would wipe up the course with the two strapping gentlemen against whom we played? You’ve just got to love the game.