May 5, 2004
Tourney

     Back a couple of weekends ago Wayne Fisher and Fisher’s Liquor Barn hosted a golf tournament for two man teams.  Benefiting Community Hospital the tournament promised  $18,000 in prize money. Big Pooliey and I decided we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to strike it rich while golfing so we ponied up the entrance fee. 

     Big Pooliey and I have been playing golf together for almost fifty years.  Well we played golf together back in Illinois in the early 60”s, then I took a short hiatus from the game.  That ever so brief period of pursuing things other than golf lasted from 1968 through 1998. Despite the layoff I picked up golf right where I left off, bogie, double bogie, bogie, triple bogie etc. etc. 

     Bookcliff hosted the first day of the tourney.  The Friday format was nine holes of best ball and another nine of something called the “modified Chapman” format.  Best ball is easy.  Partners tee off and then select their best drive.  Both hit their second shots from that point. Repeat the procedure until you hole out.

     The “modified Chapman” is a bit more complicated.  But what it boils down to is  “screw your buddy” golf.  After the initial drive wherever Player A’s ball lands the second shot must be hit by Player B.  And versa-vice-a.  Hit a bad drive, it’s your partner’s responsibility.  But your teammate becomes more than a wee bit testy when forced to leave his perfect drive, the one sitting in the middle of the fairway, for you to hit while he heads for the “swamp” on the outer edge of the course where the rules require him to play the drive you airmailed into oblivion.

    Each and every spring the Tiara Rado golf course hosts a couple’s tournament where the “modified Chapman” format is in effect.  For the most part the couples entered are man and wife.  It is also no coincidence that within six holes of the tournament’s initial year it was quickly dubbed “The Divorce Open” thanks to the “modified Chapman”.

     Tiara Rado is where we played the tournament’s second day.  It was played as a “best ball.  Everybody plays his own ball and at the end of each hole a team writes down the score of the player on the team who had the lowest total strokes.

      Big Poolie and I had survived Bookcliff intact and after the first nine holes on Saturday came the realization we were in contention for a piece of the previously mentioned eighteen grand.  Bad realization.

      How is it two sixty-year-old geezers were in contention among a phalanx of thirty something flat-bellies?  Two reasons.  For one thing the good golfers were placed in a separate division out of sight, out of touch and out of competition from those of us making up golf’s “unwashed” caste.

       The other reason is handicap.   Characterized by some as the only form of communism to ever succeed in our democracy a handicap gives hackers a number to deduct from their score.  Better players don’t get to subtract much at all.  A two handicap is a really good player.  But in a match against a 20 he’s giving away a stroke a hole.  Handicaps help even things up.    

   But no matter how many strokes we received, and we got a bunch, once the realization hit prize money was within our grasp reality kicked in.  Big time.  Drives suddenly headed only for the out of bounds, iron shots continually found the rough and every putt developed a “hole avoidance” conflict. You can’t imagine how hard it is to play golf when one must continually remember to breathe.  Big Poolie played lights out.  But his short, bald-headed partner was gag-a-rama.

     So we didn’t win, place or show.  But it’s all perspective.  Back at Cambridge High my ranking was 23^rd out of the 44 students in our class.  I preferred telling people I was valedictorian of the bottom half.  At the Fisher Tournament Big Poolie and I finished near the top of those golfers who played for the “experience”.  Doesn’t that sound more positive?