While cleaning a closet the other day, I came across a ziplock bag of thoroughly abused golf balls that I should have trashed long ago. Many bad memories associated with those little white orbs. Greens fees that yielded only misery, rounds cut short by rain, beer cart girls who wouldn’t look at me twice were tips not involved. But one ball in particular -- marked by a very distinctive scuff suffered in a very distinctive round that very distinctively had almost nothing to do with golf -- had mostly fond memories associated with it.
As of this writing, the bag and its contents have been properly bidden adieu, but you’ll be much relieved to know that this entry has nothing to do with old, slashed golf balls. It has everything to do with the synergistic power of crappy beer and collective masculine stupidity, and not much else.
I don’t know how many of us were drunk when we arrived at the golf course, but I was only able to get mid-afternoon tee times, and several of the gentlemen in our party clearly subscribed to the school of thought that the best way to counteract a hangover is to replicate the conditions that first led to the hangover. Following this strategy to its natural end implies that one would spend all of his time intoxicated, and indeed a couple of the guys very nearly accomplished this feat over a 72 hour period. I’m pretty sure any number of medical professionals would denounce this strategy, but I must admit that there’s something oddly inspiring about watching a blood-shot-eyed, queasy man crack open a can of Miller Lite at 9:45 AM on the balcony of a boardwalk hotel. I happened to be neither drunk nor hungover, this being one of the natural byproducts of assuming the role of “guy who makes sure that nobody else at the bachelor party gets killed unless he really, really deserves it.” That said, we were going to be on a golf course for the next four or five hours, and even though long metal sticks and motorized electric carts with high centers of gravity were going to be involved, I figured I could let my guard down for a bit, drink some crappy beer, and maybe get a little sunburned.
Most of the members of the group weren’t making big money, and of those who were, they weren’t terribly far removed from the days when tighter budgets ruled. So, we were trying to do the bachelor party weekend with limited funding, and that meant that we had to sneak beer onto the golf course. Well, I suppose we didn’t have to sneak beer onto the course, but it seemed like a righteous plan. We arrived shortly before our tee time, dropped our beer-stocked golf bags at the bag drop, debated for 5 minutes whether someone should stay with the bags to make sure that no one stole the $30 worth of beer stowed in them (there was no discussion about whether anyone should stand guard over the roughly $5,000 worth of golf equipment, however), and parked our cars (fear not, all drivers were sober). Since everything takes about 32 times longer when a bunch of drunk dudes are involved, roughly ten minutes elapsed between the time we dropped our bags and when we meandered back to the bag drop area. We arrived just in time to watch in horror as a couple caddies strained like malnourished pack animals as they hauled our beer-laden bags past the sign prohibiting alcohol not purchased on the premises. Fortunately, neither caddy squealed as they secured our bags in our waiting golf carts, and we were soon demolishing a beautiful marshland course in the Ocean City area.
Turns out we were also demolishing our supply of beer. (This, along with farts that probably violated certain clauses in the Geneva Convention, were the dominant themes for the weekend.) The escalating beer shortage situation led to perhaps the only moment of honest, thoughtful discussion all weekend, as various group members debated -- between gigantic swigs -- whether we should ration our remaining supply, or send one of the carts back to the clubhouse to buy horribly overpriced, crappy beer. Evidently, God didn’t want us to think too hard about this decision, because we were soon joined by an attractive brunette at the helm of a well-stocked beverage cart. Crisis averted.
You might not have seen this coming, but things degenerated pretty rapidly at that point. In fact, only two moments stand out from the rest, and both involved the beer cart girl. Shortly before our second visit from the brunette, one of the guys in my foursome needed to relieve himself, but didn’t feel like traipsing too far into the woods to do so. He muttered something about us warning him if the beer cart girl came around again, and I don’t know how many of us didn’t hear this request and how many heard it but didn’t much care for honoring it, but apparently everybody fell into one of these two categories. Which meant that we were all treated to a few glorious moments in which this dude had his fun bits partially on display for our good-natured beer cart girl. Following a series of profuse apologies, the cart girl brushed it off with, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse.” While I desperately wanted clarification on whether “I’ve seen worse” referred to the spectacle in general, or the exposed dong in particular, I figured that masculine pride was at stake, so I refrained from pushing the situation to even greater levels of social discomfort. (It’s a hobby.)
The second notable event, again of the beer cart girl variety, occurred during her final stop of the day. I wasn’t near the cart when she stopped by, nor was I within earshot. But, based on the number of beers being pulled out of the beverage cart and the number of trips required to transfer them to our own golf carts, it was clear that one of the following three things had happened:
- The folks at the clubhouse had just realized that one of the guys in our group was their 1,000,000th customer, and they decided to reward us with all of their beer.
- Somewhere on the back nine, the beer cart girl had renounced capitalism and her first act of wealth redistribution involved giving The Man’s brew to the proles.
- The beer cart girl had announced that this would be our final opportunity to purchase refreshments, so one of the guys in our group panicked and bought all of the beer in the cart.
If you voted for option number three, give yourself a pat on the back. Yes, we gave the guy shit about buying all of the beer, but eventually cooler heads prevailed and we admitted that most of us would have panicked and done precisely the same thing in that situation. Because we’re that stupid, too.
I don’t remember who posted the low round that day, but I’m pretty sure that no one cared. At the conclusion of the round, I remember all of us carrying our once again beer-laden golf bags past the sign prohibiting beverages not purchased on the premises and thinking that we and the golf course were now more-or-less even. And, I remember playing football at twilight in the golf course’s parking lot as a slow drizzle began to fall. But, mostly, I remember feeling relieved that everyone was still alive in spite of the fact that one or two of the guys probably didn’t really, really deserve it.
