This year the Leo and I traveled to Myrtle Beach to play golf in the Grape Apes’ annual family outing. We played at Legends. The fourth in our foursome was an officer with the local Sheriff’s Department. How they chose to have Officer Man Mountain play with us I’ll never know. Maybe it was a pre-emptive measure. I mean after all, John E and Leo do have a bit of a reputation. No lie, this guy was and is a giant.
Officer Man Mountain was a little, how should I say this? Scary, I guess that’s the best word for it, he was scary. Every time he spoke to one of us he started and ended the comment with “Boy”. Things like “Boy, how long you be’n a play’n this game? Shoot, Boy last time a saw a hook like that it was in a fish's mouth. I tell you what boy, I’m gonna straight’n you out, I’ll get you to hit the fairway by the end of this round. You wait and see. I’m gonna fix you up good Boy.” He said all of this to my friend Leo. No kidding and no exaggeration.
So, after about 6 holes, Officer Sasquatch sprung into action. Leo teed the ball up. As he started to get ready to hit, Sasquatch seized his opportunity. He looked at us and started in “Shoot boy, what in the hell are you a doin? Tee that ball up right. It aint that hard boy, here, let me straighten you out.” With that, he walked over to Leo. Leo’s standing there with his legs spread in his ready to swing stance and here comes Sasquatch. I couldn’t really see what happened, all I know is Officer Scary squatted down in front of Leo and started to say something about his balls, something about Leo’s balls being too low. Apparently when you play golf, your balls need to be higher. I couldn’t make it all out; a lot of it was garbled. I was standing there in awe of what I was seeing. Officer OhmyGod was on his knees in front of Leo squirming around making all manner of garbled noises after just talking about Leo’s balls, and Leo was tense. Really, really tense. He wasn’t in his ready position any longer and he wasn’t moving a muscle. After a minute, Officer Sasquatch stood up, wiped off his brow and said “There you go boy, now hit that thing, hit that ball. Hit it hard.” So Leo got in his ready position again and was about to swing. Office Man Mountain again sprung into action. As Leo addressed the ball, Sasquatch said “Shooooooooot Boooooooy, what the hell are you a doin? Relax, you’re too tense. Wiggle them hips first boy.” With that, he again walked up to Leo. He put his hands on Leo’s hips and started in. “Come on Boy, wiggle them hips, loosen up. You know how to do it, relax. Shake that thing boy. Boy, look at the way you are hold’en that club. What are you try’n to do, choke a chicken? Soft hands. That’s it, nice and easy, hold the shaft, all nice and soft like. Get in the rhythm, come on nice and easy, move with me, back and forth, relax, hold it soft, keep the shaft loose in your hands, then hit that thing.” All the while he’s swaying back and forth, with his arms around Leo’s hips. After what seemed like an uncomfortable eternity, Office Sasquatch released Leo. He walked to that back of the tee looked at Leo and said, “Come on now Peckerwood, hit that thing.” Leo took a mighty swing and WHACKED that ball. It was his worst drive of the day. The thing took off at about a 90 degree angle from the Tee box and headed deep into the weeds. Leo turned to leave the tee and you could see it. He was trembling, and I think there was a tear in his eye. Office Scaryman called him Peckerwood for the rest of the day.
I’m not sure I know what I Peckerwood is. All I know is according to Officer Sasquatch, whatever it is, Leo’s it. Thoughts and images of how Leo became a Peckerwood are permanently etched in my brain. I’m still having the nightmares.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Swede
For the past few years, the WBFL has had a golf outing, the Great WBFL Golfing Extravaganza. No one really golf’s, so it’s all fun and games. One of the guys, Angryswede, says he doesn’t know how to play, but that’s OK, he can just throw the ball. This leads to several days of arguing about how far you can throw a golf ball. He says he can throw it further than he can hit it. He says he can throw it over 100 yards. If you’ve ever tried to throw a golf ball you know, it doesn’t throw well. I check with every golfer I can think of, no one thinks anyone can throw a golf ball 100 yards. Secure in the knowledge it’s an unachievable task, I set about forcing Swede into a $100 bet. The bet is simple, either he can, or can't throw a golfball 100 yards. If he throws it 100 yards, he wins. Simple. He accepts the bet, we shake hands, the deal is done.
Confident in my growing string of wins, I assume this will be another easy $100 and an opportunity to torment another of the guys that taunts me for being old. I’m all a twitter with anticipation. I decide to start my fun early and convince him he should have a test throw. There’s a softball field at the end of the road. I tell him to try throwing the ball from the road, to over the backstop. It’s not 100 yards, but it’s close. After work, we conduct the test. I grab a ball and toss it to him. In one movement, he catches the ball, turns and flips it towards the backstop. It’s almost an underhand throw. He doesn’t back up a couple of steps and chuck it. He just side arm flips it. That ball cleared the top of the backstop by about 20 feet. My chin hit the pavement; the little prick can do it. I toss him another ball, he does it again. CRAP, I’m screwed. There are 4 of us at this test. Two other guys tried the toss. One guy couldn’t reach the infield. The other got it to roll up almost to the pitcher’s mound. Now that’s what I was expecting. The 6’, 225 lb guy couldn’t get the ball out of the outfield. The little 5 foot nothing, 125 lb guy, tosses it 20 feet over the backstop. Life’s not fair. Quick, how do I change the bet?
So the bet is, Mark has to toss the ball 100 yards. I get him to move the challenge to my yard. I figure, he’ll have to toss it over trees to make it 100 yards. I figure that the height he has to toss the ball to clear the trees will reduce the distance he will get. However, I also figure, it would be better if I could get the bet canceled. So I go to work on him. As it gets closer, I start to get more desperate. It’s not the money I’m worried about. It’s giving them (the little kiddies) more ammunition for harassment. So I tip my hand. I send him a photograph of my yard. I show him the trees and where he’ll be tossing the ball from. I tell him that I’d feel bad cheating him, and I offer to cancel the bet. But he’s not biting. He doesn’t care about the trees. At this point, he doesn’t seem to care about the bet. He’s curious to see if he can make the toss. He’s going to throw the ball. DAMN!
So we play golf, and afterwards, all adjourn to my house for the Great Golf Ball Toss. I get Swede to where I want him to throw from and start explaining what he has to do. I no sooner start talking than he flips the ball over the trees. 6 guys start yelling and laughing. He’s won the bet on his first throw. They (not me, I’m done) make him throw about a dozen more balls. Every time he gets a little more distance. Eventually, he reaches the road. That’s approximately 400 feet away. Others try making the throw. No one else clears the trees. As soon as he wins the bet, he jumps in his car and leaves. He didn’t stick around for the BBQ or even a drink. He just humiliated me and left. I hate him now.
So my record is now 9-1-0. The only one I care about is that single loss. Did I mention I hate him now? This is the day I started calling him LGM. Old Guys still rule. But that’s only because LGM is now 30, so to the rest of the kiddies, he’s an Old Guy.
Now this is the icing on the cake. After LGM makes the throw my buddy LEO (hate him too), looks at me and says, “oh, did I forget to tell you, he’s got a cannon for an arm.”
Confident in my growing string of wins, I assume this will be another easy $100 and an opportunity to torment another of the guys that taunts me for being old. I’m all a twitter with anticipation. I decide to start my fun early and convince him he should have a test throw. There’s a softball field at the end of the road. I tell him to try throwing the ball from the road, to over the backstop. It’s not 100 yards, but it’s close. After work, we conduct the test. I grab a ball and toss it to him. In one movement, he catches the ball, turns and flips it towards the backstop. It’s almost an underhand throw. He doesn’t back up a couple of steps and chuck it. He just side arm flips it. That ball cleared the top of the backstop by about 20 feet. My chin hit the pavement; the little prick can do it. I toss him another ball, he does it again. CRAP, I’m screwed. There are 4 of us at this test. Two other guys tried the toss. One guy couldn’t reach the infield. The other got it to roll up almost to the pitcher’s mound. Now that’s what I was expecting. The 6’, 225 lb guy couldn’t get the ball out of the outfield. The little 5 foot nothing, 125 lb guy, tosses it 20 feet over the backstop. Life’s not fair. Quick, how do I change the bet?
So the bet is, Mark has to toss the ball 100 yards. I get him to move the challenge to my yard. I figure, he’ll have to toss it over trees to make it 100 yards. I figure that the height he has to toss the ball to clear the trees will reduce the distance he will get. However, I also figure, it would be better if I could get the bet canceled. So I go to work on him. As it gets closer, I start to get more desperate. It’s not the money I’m worried about. It’s giving them (the little kiddies) more ammunition for harassment. So I tip my hand. I send him a photograph of my yard. I show him the trees and where he’ll be tossing the ball from. I tell him that I’d feel bad cheating him, and I offer to cancel the bet. But he’s not biting. He doesn’t care about the trees. At this point, he doesn’t seem to care about the bet. He’s curious to see if he can make the toss. He’s going to throw the ball. DAMN!
So we play golf, and afterwards, all adjourn to my house for the Great Golf Ball Toss. I get Swede to where I want him to throw from and start explaining what he has to do. I no sooner start talking than he flips the ball over the trees. 6 guys start yelling and laughing. He’s won the bet on his first throw. They (not me, I’m done) make him throw about a dozen more balls. Every time he gets a little more distance. Eventually, he reaches the road. That’s approximately 400 feet away. Others try making the throw. No one else clears the trees. As soon as he wins the bet, he jumps in his car and leaves. He didn’t stick around for the BBQ or even a drink. He just humiliated me and left. I hate him now.
So my record is now 9-1-0. The only one I care about is that single loss. Did I mention I hate him now? This is the day I started calling him LGM. Old Guys still rule. But that’s only because LGM is now 30, so to the rest of the kiddies, he’s an Old Guy.
Now this is the icing on the cake. After LGM makes the throw my buddy LEO (hate him too), looks at me and says, “oh, did I forget to tell you, he’s got a cannon for an arm.”
Excalibur Drools
Excalibur has been busting my crackers about being an old guy since just about the time we first met It doesn't matter how many times I show him up, it's always the same. He always is busting my balls. It always endsin some kind of competition, the Old Guy against the 20 nothing. One day, I decided we should put this competition to rest. I challenged this kid to a $100 winner take all; loser shuts up, three club golf match. Little does he know, I have a plan.
Excalibut. accepts the challenge. He’s taken the bait. Let the games begin. I immediately start working on him. First thing we have to do is declare our club selection. He picks a driver, a 9 iron and a putter. PERFECT!!! I take a 5 wood, a wedge and a putter. This is excellent for my plan. Now I dial it up a notch. I start in on him that his club selection sucks. I tell him he won’t be able to use his driver. I’m going to take him to course where it won’t do him any good. I send him all kinds of spread sheets pointing out that he needs different clubs. What my real goal is is to get him to swap out the 9 iron for a 7 or 6 iron. That part of the plan fails. The rest of it works better than I expected. I write up elaborate rules. Things like: you can only bring 4 balls and if you lose all your balls, you’ve lost the match. I had 4 pages of rules. I wish I had saved them. I kept working him. I kept telling him that he won’t be able to use his driver off the fairway. Maybe he should take a longer iron. He starts going to the driving range to practice hitting that driver. To be fair, I did play a few rounds myself using only my club selection, just in case I actually had to use it. One of my rules in this match was, I get to pick the course. I keep telling him that I’m going to take him to Atlantic. There is an Atlantic golf course in Plymouth. That Atlantic golf course is LONG. All summer I’m listening to him rant on and on about how long he can hit his driver and how good he’s getting hitting the driver off the fairway.
At one point, he wants to change the challenge to a best two out of three format. He gets to pick what the next challenge is. I’m no sucker, he loves paint ball. No way am I going to fall for that. I accept his challenge expansion with the stipulation, no paint ball. He abandons his great plan. Score another one for the “old guy”.
This went on for over three months. Finally we set a date for the match. This is great. I’m going to humiliate the kid.
As the date approached, I was 99.99% sure I would beat him. But I wasn’t positive. So how do I turn this into a win-win for me, even if he beats me on the course? I go out and get $100 worth of nickels. Did you know $100 worth of nickels weighs 22.5 pounds? I unwrap them all and put the lose coins in a plastic bag. Now it doesn’t matter what happens, I’ll enjoy handing him the nickels almost as much as beating him. Win-Win.
About midnight the night before our “challenge”, I send him a message. I tell him the course we are going to is Atlantic in ATTLEBORO. The plan is in motion. We get to the course and there’s frost on the ground. We can’t go out until it clears up. We stand around the parking lot for about an hour just chatting. Finally, we’re cleared to go. He starts putting together his “stuff”. He removes his extra balls from his bag, gets his three clubs, puts on his golfing shoes etc. etc. etc. I just stand there. Finally he looks at me and asks, “Aren’t you going to get ready?”. I just tell him I’m waiting on him. In reality, I’m just waiting to get his attention. When he’s all ready, he looks at me and says “let’s go”. I don’t put on any special golf shoes. I don’t have a special golf glove, or hat or anything else. I just throw a couple of balls in my pocket, reach into the truck and grab my wedge and putter. He looks at me and says “only two clubs” and starts to laugh at me. I motion to the sign that’s been behind me the whole time we were talking. The sign says: Atlantic Golf Course, 9 Holes, Executive Par 3. It was just great. I could see his whole demeanor change. He knew he had been had. The air came right out of him, his shoulders slumped forward and the smile was gone. At that moment, I knew I had beaten him. He lost that round before he even set foot on the course. The longest hole on the course was less than 100 yards. His mighty 300 yard tee shots weren’t going to help him now.
We did match play. It took me 12 holes to win. I had to deliberately throw a couple of holes just to make it go that long. When we were all finished, he asked why I wanted rid of his 9 iron. I told him that if I could have gotten him to use a 7 or a 6, I would have taken him to the Chip and Putt that was at the other end of the parking lot. The longest hole there is about 30 feet.
Another win for the “old guy”. You know what they say don’t you? OK, all together now “OLD GUYS RULE!!!”
And if you are interested, follow this link to the rest of the story.
http://oldiesman999.blogspot.com/2010/03/old-guys-rule.html
Excalibut. accepts the challenge. He’s taken the bait. Let the games begin. I immediately start working on him. First thing we have to do is declare our club selection. He picks a driver, a 9 iron and a putter. PERFECT!!! I take a 5 wood, a wedge and a putter. This is excellent for my plan. Now I dial it up a notch. I start in on him that his club selection sucks. I tell him he won’t be able to use his driver. I’m going to take him to course where it won’t do him any good. I send him all kinds of spread sheets pointing out that he needs different clubs. What my real goal is is to get him to swap out the 9 iron for a 7 or 6 iron. That part of the plan fails. The rest of it works better than I expected. I write up elaborate rules. Things like: you can only bring 4 balls and if you lose all your balls, you’ve lost the match. I had 4 pages of rules. I wish I had saved them. I kept working him. I kept telling him that he won’t be able to use his driver off the fairway. Maybe he should take a longer iron. He starts going to the driving range to practice hitting that driver. To be fair, I did play a few rounds myself using only my club selection, just in case I actually had to use it. One of my rules in this match was, I get to pick the course. I keep telling him that I’m going to take him to Atlantic. There is an Atlantic golf course in Plymouth. That Atlantic golf course is LONG. All summer I’m listening to him rant on and on about how long he can hit his driver and how good he’s getting hitting the driver off the fairway.
At one point, he wants to change the challenge to a best two out of three format. He gets to pick what the next challenge is. I’m no sucker, he loves paint ball. No way am I going to fall for that. I accept his challenge expansion with the stipulation, no paint ball. He abandons his great plan. Score another one for the “old guy”.
This went on for over three months. Finally we set a date for the match. This is great. I’m going to humiliate the kid.
As the date approached, I was 99.99% sure I would beat him. But I wasn’t positive. So how do I turn this into a win-win for me, even if he beats me on the course? I go out and get $100 worth of nickels. Did you know $100 worth of nickels weighs 22.5 pounds? I unwrap them all and put the lose coins in a plastic bag. Now it doesn’t matter what happens, I’ll enjoy handing him the nickels almost as much as beating him. Win-Win.
About midnight the night before our “challenge”, I send him a message. I tell him the course we are going to is Atlantic in ATTLEBORO. The plan is in motion. We get to the course and there’s frost on the ground. We can’t go out until it clears up. We stand around the parking lot for about an hour just chatting. Finally, we’re cleared to go. He starts putting together his “stuff”. He removes his extra balls from his bag, gets his three clubs, puts on his golfing shoes etc. etc. etc. I just stand there. Finally he looks at me and asks, “Aren’t you going to get ready?”. I just tell him I’m waiting on him. In reality, I’m just waiting to get his attention. When he’s all ready, he looks at me and says “let’s go”. I don’t put on any special golf shoes. I don’t have a special golf glove, or hat or anything else. I just throw a couple of balls in my pocket, reach into the truck and grab my wedge and putter. He looks at me and says “only two clubs” and starts to laugh at me. I motion to the sign that’s been behind me the whole time we were talking. The sign says: Atlantic Golf Course, 9 Holes, Executive Par 3. It was just great. I could see his whole demeanor change. He knew he had been had. The air came right out of him, his shoulders slumped forward and the smile was gone. At that moment, I knew I had beaten him. He lost that round before he even set foot on the course. The longest hole on the course was less than 100 yards. His mighty 300 yard tee shots weren’t going to help him now.
We did match play. It took me 12 holes to win. I had to deliberately throw a couple of holes just to make it go that long. When we were all finished, he asked why I wanted rid of his 9 iron. I told him that if I could have gotten him to use a 7 or a 6, I would have taken him to the Chip and Putt that was at the other end of the parking lot. The longest hole there is about 30 feet.
Another win for the “old guy”. You know what they say don’t you? OK, all together now “OLD GUYS RULE!!!”
And if you are interested, follow this link to the rest of the story.
http://oldiesman999.blogspot.com/2010/03/old-guys-rule.html
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