36 Holes of Fury

This morning I wake up thinking that I'm late for work. So I jump in the shower and start throwing on some clothes when the clock catches my eye. It's 1:30 am. What the hell. So I pass out again and I'm thinking, "Hey, now I don't have to shower in the morning." Well that was a good thought--I ended up sleeping through my alarm and got to work late anyway. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. I got in at 7:30. But for a busy day, I like to get in by 7-7:15.

So I get into work at 7:30. I sign up on the stand-by board with 10 guys ahead of me. But I was sore, so I saw this as a good thing. Now I can relax for an hour or two before I get assigned to a loop. As soon as I LOOK at the TV this younger kid comes into the caddie room and says, "Hey, is there a Tom in here this morning?"

Fuckin' right there is little man. But wait a minute. I'm wanted on the tee NOW?

So scratch that first thought. No relaxing. I'm in like flint as soon as I come through the gate. Turns out the little kid was originally assigned to the loop, but the guy he was about to work for said, "Hey, is Tom around?"

It was that nice older man with the unique voice. He had requested me. Way to be.

But now I have to carry two bags. Not as cool. Halfway through the round I turned to the other caddie and said, "Hey, do you think I could leave after this 18 and rest up for tomorrow?"

"Hell no. Out of all the days this summer, this is the one day I'm sure you have to do 36."

And the 36 holes of fury was born.

Fortunately, the two player's I caddied for were good sticks. And whenever they split me, they made it easy on me by grabbing two or three clubs and telling me I could help out the other player. So as far as carrying two bags goes, it wasn't that bad.

It was your typical loop with your typical tip. But at least I got requested. Who's your daddy bossman?

I almost had to go right back out on the second loop, but at the last minute the boss assigned another caddie to take my place so he wouldn't have to "shove an apple down my throat and kick me back out there."

So instead of force-feeding me, he was now able to let me out for 20 minutes to grab some food from the nearest 7-Eleven. So that was nice. But that was a quick break. As soon as I got back to the course, he put me out again.

I was assigned to forecaddie for a foursome.

When I got out to the tee to meet all of them, there was only one more guy left to tee off, which sucked for me because I hadn't seen any of their tee shots. I had no idea where to start looking (of course at this point I didn't realize they were all scratch golfers, and I needn't look anywhere but the fairway). To add to the confusion, they all came to me at once when I held out my hand to introduce myself.

"Hi, I'm Tom."

"I'm Frank I'm Tom I'm Mark I'm Jim."

I write it this way because that's just about how it went. Except all I heard was: "Blah blah blah blah TOM blah blah fuckin' blah blah."

So I had no idea who any of them were. All I knew is that one of them was named Tom. I mean sure, after 6 holes I had all of the correct names. All I had to do was pay attention to the comments they were making to each other. But that first hole was craziness.

And the players were all phenomenal. I think there were only two or three holes all day where one player out of four missed the fairway. All the players were very nice too. I mean, I guess a couple of them took the game more seriously than the other two, but for the most part, they were all comedians.

"My sphincter hurts just from looking at that putt."

"So I hear Phil's tits are back."

"Well fuck you for making that one. Now I'm gonna have to grind my nuts off on this putt."

It was never ending. I tried out a few new things for the second round, and they all seemed to work out pretty well. Things like running up to the green on a par-3 after they hit and quickly fixing all of the ball marks, cleaning each ball, and reading each putt (they really never asked for a read though).

Sounds like common sense, but for some reason, I haven't done that until now. Or maybe I just haven't really had the opportunity. I mean think about it: when's the last time you played in a foursome where EVERYBODY hit the green on a 175 yard par-3? Not to sound cliche, but these guys are good.

After we finished the round, the loudest of the four comes up to me and asks, "So what should we pay you?"

"Umm...I don't know." Tom, you're brilliant.

"What, like $50, $60 a bag?"

Holy-crap-balls-mother-fucking-whore-bag. That's so much money. Say yes Tom! Agree with him you bastard! NOD OR SOMETHING!

So I reply: "Well, I'll be honest with you. I normally make like $20-$30 a bag."

YOU IDIOT! NICE CALL JACK-FACE! WHY DON'T YOU OFFER HIM YOUR FIRST-BORN CHILD WHILE YOU'RE AT IT!

"Well we'll give you $40 a bag."

At this point another player chimed in and said, "Yeah, that's no problem. This money means more to you than it does to us."

Well there's a great quote. I believe I'll have to add that one to the site when I'm done with this post.

So I screwed up on that tip. But it still was a great tip. And I'm really glad I got to meet those guys. I'm glad they never had me reading putts today. I mean yeah, I read a few. But for the most part I didn't, and they were making EVERYTHING. They sure as hell didn't need me on the greens. If they had the right line, they would drop a 30-footer no problem. Then again, they were always 15 feet or less from the hole after their approach shots. 30-footers were a rarity.

Alright. So tomorrow is another 36 holes. I can't even imagine how sore I will be after tomorrow. Well, I guess I can, and that's just sad. Right now, I can't extend my arms all the way up in the air over my head and when I try to stretch my neck out by moving my head down towards my chest, it's very painful. What's next? Will one of my nads fall off or something?

Anyway. Thanks for reading. Hopefully tomorrow will be full of great topics to talk about.