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
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