Hold Down the Fort

A strange experience indeed is to show up at the appointed time of 6:52 and see all the same characters, the Starter, the guy who takes the money, the people in front of us, but alas the fab four was not there. I was a solo act, the only one that was entitled to play at that hour, the only one who understood that you had to sleep out in the parking lot to get this coveted slot. I was joined by 3 walk-ons. They called the course and were surprised to hear that there was time available before 7 in the morning. We were random golfers thrown together for 18 holes on Sunday morning. My compadres all had valid reasons for not making it. Since the Blog is called “BK golf and more” let’s start with Bernard Kimberg. As Bernie indicated on his post from last week, he is taking a rather unorthodox approach to curing his slice. Thankfully all went well and we expect to see Bernie and his new clubs sooner rather than later. Barry was sampling a golf course in the Caribbean learning to use the trade winds to cure his slice once and for all. Dan is getting good use out of his summer house on the lake with friends from Washington staying over. So it was me and Ian and John and Phil that made up the foursome. The first point of order is to find out what color tees people like to hit from. The Blue tees are for the more advanced players, they are set back as far away from the holes as possible. Since you get the same number of strokes for par, these tees usually demand that you hit the ball pretty far. Then there are the white tees which are for average golfers. These are the tees that the fab four play from. So the votes were in, Ian and Phil would hit from the blues and John and I would hit from the whites. The opening hole has a lot of pressure attached to it, because everyone is watching. I was glad when Phil led off with a hard shank to the right landing about 40 yards away. I knew I couldn’t do worse than that so I was safe from embarrassing myself with my new “friends.” Now I will get to the “golf and more” part of the blog. Let’s start with Ian. Ian as the song from “Hair” says is from “Manchester England England across the Atlantic Sea.” He was a pretty big guy, but he didn’t look particularly athletic. It turns out that Ian can hit a golf ball further than anybody we have played with this year. To put it in perspective for those that know the course, on the 3rd hole he hit it on the left side of the fairway and it landed next to the hill. On the 8th hole he was about 40 yards short of the 150 yard marker and hit his 2nd shot into the bunker next to the green. Finally, on the 13th hole he had the misfortune to have the ball roll into the stream which is pretty far away. Ian works for Reuters and he and Equatorian wife have become so smitten with the U.S. that they have both gotten their green cards and their son born earlier this year is an American citizen. Ian did say that he would still be rooting for the Europeans in the Ryder Cup.
John had a solid golf game. He is a Clinical Psychologist who has spent his entire career working for one employer – Uncle Sam. He works at the VA hospital near Indian Point. He works on the chronic care ward with mostly Viet Nam veterans. On more than one occasion, when John missed a short putt, one of us would remark that it was good thing he was a psychologist, because otherwise he would need one.
Which leaves us with Phil. Phil works in the investor relations department of AllianceBernstein . Phil had no business playing from the Blue tees. During the course of the 18 holes, he took about 5 Mulligans and sprayed the ball all over the place hitting about 4 fairways. He could have used “Dr, Phil” because he was quite upset at the way he was playing and indicated that it was unusual for him. He wasn’t that bad, but I don’t think we will be asking him to join us in the future.
There you have it. 3 guys, none of whom could take the place of the regular members of the foursome. We finished in 4 hours and 40 minutes, hit up on the guys in front of us and didn’t get scolded by the Ranger. Weather was perfect, course was in great shape and I played the same game I have been playing every week. Hopefully next week I will be joined by a familiar face or two.