Another Day, Another Dollar

For some reason it was incredibly hard to wake up and/or get to work by 7:40 am. I think I'm starting to get old. But I did it. And to my surprise, there were 6 or 7 guys there already looking sharp and ready to go. So I followed suit and got on my bib.

I would sit around for about 3 hours before I got a bag. But to tell you the truth, it wasn't that bad. Lots of good conversation, lots of wisdom. My boss's sister apparently was born with certain "deficiencies." She was born with a condition similar to Terri Schiavo. His sister is blind and receives her meals through something called a "G-Tube." She's been in this vegetative state since she was born. Talk about tough.

My boss said that with all the controversy and moral questions being thrown around with this Schiavo situation, he just has one question: "Can she eat?"

He agreed with the moral implications--she could be very comfortable right now and not want to die, or she could be suffering and want you to pull the plug, but can't say so herself--but he said that if she can't eat by herself, taking out the feeding tube is murder. Wow. Well, I'll stop with this topic for the moment. All of America has been inundated with this case for a while now. But again, I just wanted to point out that just because their carrying your bags and getting yardages, caddies do have a lot to say. And most of what they say can be very enlightening.

So I finally got a bag. A Korean foursome. Deja-vu. Maybe.

Well, it started off well. They made the wagers at the start, and never exchanged any money throughout the round. And my man hit an awesome opening tee shot. The guy looked like he could shoot 75. Turns out he really sucked. But hey, he was very jovial and was a fairly easy to keep track of.

I think there were only a couple things that really annoyed me today. First and foremost, I have not played this course yet. True, it's very very ultra exclusive. But if I haven't played the course, how do you expect me to feel comfortable with yardages I'm giving people or the reads I'm making on putts? I would call out 128 for a yardage, and I KNEW there was a large uphill before the green. I'm not stupid. I know you'd need a little more distance. The two guys I caddied with today were both calling out yardages for everyone to hear. So that 128 I called out turned into 148. I was nervous, because at this point I'm not at liberty to disagree with their call. I'm still the rookie. But I wasn't sure if my guy needed all that club. And as it turned out, he didn't. He flew the green, and looked at me with this weird look on his face. Probably saying to himself: "You're a caddie. This is what you do. And you suck. I lose more and more confidence the more yardages I take from you."

And when our foursome was walking to 9, I was following closely behind two of the players, and although I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, they sounded like they were confirming my fears. They weren't happy with the yardages they were being given. They were getting "more and more afraid to take the club back." So that deflated me a bit. I felt kinda helpless. I mean, if I KNEW what the hell I was talking about, there wouldn't be this problem.

By the time we got to the 16th I had to pee so bad I think my back teeth were starting to float. So as soon as my guy hit the green, I gave him his putter and darted into the woods in between 16 and 17, thinking this was perfect. I can set down the bag and it's ready for the next hole, and I can also take a piss, which I've been dying to do since the 11th. And that pee was feeling pretty good until I started looking around and realized that I really had no cover at all where I was standing. The trees really didn't have any leaves or pine or anything even resembling foliage. So when I looked to my right, I could see one of the players in plain sight. I can only imagine what it must've looked like from his perspective: bare tree, bare tree, a few sticks and twigs, a tall caddy taking a really long piss...wow, that's pleasant...more bare trees, twigs, and so on and so forth. But hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Then the big jovial Korean man I was caddying for started falling apart.

Apparently he came up with his own technique for gripping the club. I couldn't fully understand what his reasoning for this was, but apparently for his woods he would use a weak grip, and for his irons he would use a strong grip. So, needless to say, when the wheels started coming off, he started spraying his tee ball right. Way right. And then he was having trouble walking because he's really old. I kinda felt bad for him. Then he hit it in ANOTHER trap. My sympathy was gone. Come on old man. Get it there. Wow. That's a little mean. But yeah, I was getting hungry and frustrated. On the bright side, he was one hell of a putter. I counted it up, and by the end, he had 7 one-putts. I mean, he wasn't scoring well, but from 15 feet in, he was on fire.

Well that's about it for now. Talk to everyone tomorrow.