2016 – Week 7

Man ‘o man…..this Thursday weather pattern is seriously starting to get old. Despite all the rain and a 45 minute delay, the GCCGL was THE ONLY league to pay their greens fees and march onto the course while everyone else stayed huddled under the patio and drank beer or even worse, called it a night and went home. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is NO ordinary golf league and the Kenton County Golf clubhouse knows it too. We had a great turnout 23 of 24 golfers and it would have been 24 if the one sub that was scheduled to fill in didn’t leave. More on that later. Also, I apologize for missing the Week 6 GCCGL blog update. HS graduation, holiday weekend and the water temperature hitting 80 degrees all added up to not updating the blog.

Last week’s survey was another gem. The question, “Who is the worst dress golfer in the league?” After all the votes were tallied, I am proud to say that the Portuguese Warrior edged out Squints by one vote! First let me say that I accept this award with open arms and embrace it wholeheartedly. I readily admit, I do not spend money on clothes. For one, I can think of a hundred things I’d rather do than go shopping for clothes like listening to country music for 24 straight hours or binge watch every episode of The Bachelorette or use the same bathroom stall as Chris Christie immediately after he power eats two dozen donuts at the donut palooza. I think this deep rooted indifference to fashion goes way back to when I was just a little lad growing up in New Jersey. We were simple, frugal people. When we did managed to save a few pennies, we lived it up and went out to eat at the local All-You-Can-Eat establishments and wolfed down all the “loobster” and “beff” we could stomach. No…..I didn’t misspell “loobster” or “beff”. You see, we couldn’t afford lobster and/or beef so we had to compromise and instead substitute meat-like substances (that’s one for you Cheers fans out there). Many of you may not know this but I have a twin brother. When we were little tikes, we’d share one shoe between the both of us as we walked 2 miles to school………………….uphill…………………..both ways! This was back in the 70’s, believe it or not. My mom was a professional seamstress and made all our clothes. LEVI jeans with knee patches were the “thing” back then. We begged our parents for new LEVI’s but do you think we got them? Noooo, we got “LEVO’s” and according to our mom, they were BETTER than LEVI’s. But we knew better. They didn’t have the knee patches so we complained and demanded official LEVI brand jeans. So the next week came around and our new” LEVO” jeans had brand new red, white and blue pleather knee patches sewn into them. Don’t laugh…….those pleather patches really helped cushion our fall during our beatings in between classes. So forgive me if I’m not the Mr. GQ of the fashion world. I embrace it! Do you want more proof that I make the most of my clothing investments? Check out the picture below.

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This picture was taken 10 years apart. Notice anything? No, not my dog, who is still kicking by the way. And no, not my baby girls who aren’t babies any longer. Notice something that hasn’t changed? No, not my hair style! I know it’s the same damn hair style! Check out the clothes. Those are the same jeans AND shirt 10 YEARS LATER! Look at how faded that shirt got. And I’m sad to say, that is still one of my favorite shirts to wear! The only good thing about this whole scenario is that I still fit into the same jeans I did 10 years ago. But I still can’t believe I beat out Tucker!

You know…..when I reminisce like this, it takes me back 40+ years. Man, that’s a long time ago. I guess you’re officially old when you went to grade school in the 70’s. True story, just the other day during one of my many frequent trips to the urinals, I had plenty of time to reflect as I stood there waiting for something to happen, I watched two or three millennials come and go; two of them washed their hands and one didn’t; I got a little tired and rested my right arm up against the divider. A few “minutes” later, Lip Gloss walks in and wakes me up out of a sound sleep! Great……now I’m dealing with an enlarged prostate AND narcolepsy! I am feeling old lately though. As you know, the Portuguese Warrior has fought lower back problems over the last couple of years and last night my back was really sore………from carrying my team! Come on GCM! We can’t finish behind Gamblers Fallacy! The PW is falling apart. Despite my strong start (4 – 1) and being 6^th in total points, I’m afraid I’m going on the disabled list for 4 – 6 weeks starting next Thursday. The PW has been dealing with a hernia for several months, well before the league even started this season. It’s my third hernia. I’ve struggled with this decision for a long time, wanting to put it off until after the season but finally decided it was best to get it fixed now rather than to risk it getting worse. Ultimately, I decided to get it done before my vacation in July. That would give me enough time to recover in order to be able to carry a bunch of stuff back and forth to the beach. But if I’m being honest, “herbie the hernia”, that’s what we call him, really grosses out Mrs. Portuguese Warrior every time he decides to pop out and make an appearance. I don’t know about you but I don’t need another excuse for sleeping on the couch. So, I’m officially looking for subs. Please send your resumes to me along with a brief statement of 50 words or less as to why YOU want to be my latex salesman (I mean sub). That’s one for you Seinfeld fans out there.

Looks like we may have another GCCGL controversy brewing this season. The intel that the commissioner’s office has received is solid and comes from a reliable source. Remember the “sub” who left the golf course while it was raining? Well, apparently this sub, who shall remain anonymous, was told by Hollywood that the league was cancelled due to the weather. So he left. Interesting……. I certainly don’t remember giving anyone that impression. There was no official cancellation notice despite everyone shoving a smart phone in my face every 10 seconds displaying the local weather radar. I know it was raining! I didn’t need to look at a phone to know that! And where were my co-commissioners? It was like 5:45pm and they were nowhere to be found. Anyway, the plot actually gets better. Hollywood’s team was playing the team that this sub, he who must not be named, (that one is just for you Potter) was supposedly subbing for! Whoa……you don’t say….. Seems to me there’s a little conflict of interest there. It gets even better when you consider that Hollywood AND the two other co-commissioners (Cupcake and LG) are on the team who stood to benefit from this despicable and blatant deception. So LG played against the card and won (6 -4) and won their team match 22 – 18. That two point swing became the difference. Hmm….coincidence or shenanigans? Something stinks around here and I’m not talking about Syndrome’s stripper shorts. The lesson for the kiddies is this; UNLESS DOROTHY COMES FLYING OVER YOUR HEAD WITH TOTO RIGHT BEHIND HER, WE’RE PLAYING!

Let’s give it up for Lip Gloss, he made a genius call predicting the weather would hold up. All the while taking the brunt of complaints from the majority of GCCGL members who were made to play in the slop. Why LG took all the crap and Cupcake and PW went unscathed is beyond me. Well…..that’s not true. PW went unscathed because he has mastered the art of “un-commitment” and “indecision”. Think about it for a minute. Although I never once indicated that we should call it off, I never emphatically stated that we WILL be playing either. The trick is to make it look like you’re in charge but let the other guy take the fall. It’s a win-win strategy. I actually wanted to play REALLY bad since I knew the whole time this would be my last round of golf for the next month and a half. What I don’t understand is how Cupcake NEVER, and I mean NEVER, gets any crap. This guy is the “Teflon Don” of the GCCGL. Nothing sticks to him. Don’t be surprised if it’s revealed that he had something to do with this latest “rub-a-dub-sub” controversy. Even if he is implicated, it won’t matter. He’ll just look at you with his Cupcake eyes and his Cupcake smile wearing his uncoordinated colorblind ensemble and an oddly misshaped 18 year old UC baseball cap and you’ll believe whatever he tells you. Then he’ll instigate an argument between the other co-commissioners, deflecting attention away from himself, all the while snickering behind their backs. I’m onto you Cupcake…..I’m onto you.

Not much changed in the standings this week as all the team matches were pretty close overall. The Prince Albert Syndrome were the biggest winners this week defeating Grandpa’s Cough Medicine (22.5 – 17.5). They were led by Prince Albert himself who took 7 points. Gamblers Fallacy got into the win column, even though they were surrounded by controversy. They beat Laying 8 (22 – 18). They were led by LG and Cupcake who both grabbed 6 points. Finally, Protein for Peffercorn squeaked by Three Men and a Sub (20.5 – 19.5). They were led by Cousin’ Joe and Brian Roddy who nabbed 6.5 points each.

The low net winners were Prince Albert and Scratch (A/B) with a low net of 29 and Squints (C/D) with a low net of 31. Congratulations to the winners. Check out the latest in the Prince Albert Chronicles. We stay on the front side of the Willows this week. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ‘em straight!

George Almeida – GCCGL Co-Commissioner