The Weekend

So the Member-Member was this past weekend. Sweet. I really enjoy caddying in tournaments because the golf is a little more consistent (I don’t spend as much time looking for balls) and the tips are always AMAZING. I mean, how could you NOT like caddying in tournaments? Good golf on a great course? Sign me up. Here’s the thing: I was set to caddie for Mr. Nice-Guy. Whoa boy. This might be a little awkward.

But, having slept on that last incident for a few nights now, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions. First off, Mr. Nice-Guy was the first member to request my services. In fact, every time he goes out now to play, I’m his man. This of course makes me feel SORT OF good. That’s awesome. That will REALLY come in handy on those days when the caddie room is packed and NOBODY is getting a loop. My man decides to show up, and I’m SET man. So that calmed me down a little bit. Okay, we’ve started to develop some sort of relationship here. Let’s work on this. Caddies and players at the professional level get into little “tiffs” all the time. Maybe I’m more of a professional now that I’m starting to get a little pissed at some of my players. Wait. No, scratch that. If I could be considered a professional caddie simply because I get pissed at my players from time to time, I’d not only be an UBER professional, but I’d be the president, high chancellor, grand master, WHATEVER you want to call it of the caddie world. May I simply cite—oh I don’t know let me think—this BLOG as an example.

But the other thing that crossed my mind was that Mr. Nice-Guy was one of the founding members of the course as well as being one of the first members on the board. Not sure what “board” that would be, but he’s on a board, which means that he’s at least a LITTLE important around the club. So if this guy was a founding member, is currently an active member on the board, and has to spend at least 15-20 minutes per round explaining to me just how beautiful the dogwoods are, he’s obviously quite proud of his membership and the course in general. When tour players came to him with suggestions for improving the layout of the course, he was on the cutting edge with a few of the other members in determining which suggestions they would implement. Needless to say, he’s watched the course grow and mature. Telling me and the rest of the caddies to make sure we’re fixing all of the ball marks on the greens was nothing personal. It wasn’t even a big deal now that I think about it. He’s done so much for the course. If fixing 2 or 3 extra ball marks on the greens will make him happy, then so be it. So I guess I like him again. BFF big guy.

By the way: That will be the LAST time you’ll hear me say “BFF.” Well, wait. THAT will be the last time.

The other player I’d be caddying for did two things that amazed me. First, I think his mouth and feet were interconnected, which meant even if a single synapse decided to fire in one of his TOES, this guy would be talking. But the amazing thing about it was that he would talk FULL VOLUME whenever another player was about to hit. This guy didn’t care. And neither did the other players for some reason. And that was pretty amazing to me. It’s right up there with Genital Herpes commercials. Despite the topic, the marketing guys responsible for promoting these wonder drugs seem to be stuck on a recurring theme: an untouched wilderness setting with two people. Let’s delve into this for a moment.

THE SETTING is an awesome forest. The forest should be so incredibly awesome that awesome people look at it and crap their pants. Enter MALE and FEMALE, two individuals being paid MASSIVE amounts of money to sit on a rock for five minutes and CLAIM they have genital herpes. But we know what’s REALLY up. Only the FEMALE does. Because she’s a dirty dirty skank.

Male: “3 ½ years ago I decided to have sex with this woman. Back then I didn’t realize she was such a dirty skank. But now I realize that she is. And now I’m screwed because I have genital herpes. But you know what? That’s okay. Not only am I STILL with this skank, but I get to walk around this gorgeous forest. I mean LOOK at that rock. It’s MASSIVE.”

Female: “4 years ago I decided to be a skank. And 6 months later, I had STD’s I couldn’t even PRONOUNCE. Doctor’s nicknamed me “The Green Monkey.” Those were good times. Then I met THIS guy. I’m not a huge fan of his rock fetish, but it WAS pretty cool that I could pass one of my diseases to him. I had WAY too many. And he’s too much of a wuss to leave me now. I mean who would sleep with him? But I discovered something: My life doesn’t have to stop now that I have genital herpes (cough) to name one (cough). Because I’m in this great forest that has all kinds of squirrels.”

CUT TO a close up shot of them laughing together near a waterfall. End commercial.

Okay, maybe that’s a little overboard, but what is UP with the serene settings for genital herpes’ commercials? It should be a concert with METALLICA rocking out in the background and some guy SCREAMING at us with a beer in his hand. “Yeah! So like, I have HERPES! But that’s okay man! Take this medicine and you’re good to go!”

See? Piece of cake.

Sorry. Another tangent. But you know, that’s OKAY. Oh yeah. The other guy I caddied for did one other thing that amazed me beyond belief: He took responsibility for himself on the greens. Now he didn’t ask me for a lot of reads, but when he did, he laid the blame on BOTH of us if the ball missed.

“Wow Tom. I guess we really misread that one.”

It just has a nice sound to it. “We.” Normally when a player misses a putt there is no sound at all. Just silence. And you stand there wondering if you screwed up the line or if it was just a bad putt. It’s so rare for a player to split the blame in half. It’s almost like he was saying, “That’s okay Tom. We really had a nice line there (holy crap I’m going to be using a semi-colon); it just didn’t work out for us. We’ll get ‘em next time.” It gave me some confidence coming down the stretch to volunteer some reads because I knew it was a TEAM effort. And there’s no “I” in “team.” But there IS an “I” in “caddie.” Then again, there’s also an “I” in “perpetuity.” So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Now I may have had some trouble (again) on the greens, but I’ve discovered a new talent that came in handy on more than one occasion during the tournament. I seem to have a great feel for what clubs will work out of what lies and can visualize launch angles and shot trajectories, meaning that when my players hit the ball into some trouble (which does happen) I would know exactly what club they should hit based on the lie and the height of the overhanging branches, bushes, your mom, whatever. I feel like a superhero discovering his powers for the first time. Now I know almost any idiot with a subscription to Golf Magazine could make the same suggestions, but I’ve got something those people could never have. Autographs from Jennifer Aniston. I mean sure, I didn’t ACTUALLY get them from her directly, but I still have them. And that counts for something.