2020 – Week Fifteen
Battle Golf. When you put those two words together back-to-back, they may arguably be the most hated two words in the GCCGL. It depends on who you talk to. Couzin’ Joe will tell you it is the most hated and ridiculous GCCGL event of the year. He absolutely hates it and I wouldn’t be surprised if he just pencils in a sub for himself from hereon out. Snoodles also is not a huge fan of the event but after a victory this week, will he change his mind? I doubt it. But then there are those who just absolutely love Battle Golf like Lip Gloss. When the notion of dropping one event from the shortened 2020 GCCGL schedule came up, I brought up the possibility of dropping Battle Golf. You would have thought I just insulted Lip Gloss’ mother after the reaction I received from LG. As a matter of fact, if not for the COVID virus forcing us to hold a virtual GCCGL Winter meeting event instead of meeting in person, I’m pretty sure Lip Gloss would have physically attacked me. I most definitely felt threatened. Apparently, Big Donkey is a big fan of the event too. He was boasting about how he’d play this format every week if he could. That’s easy for him to say especially as he was holding his putter in his hand on hole # 9. That didn’t sound right. It’s easy to “love” Battle Golf when you’re not standing over a 3-foot putt with nothing but a long iron, knees shaking, palms sweating, trying to knock one in just to split the hole. I for one, don’t mind Battle Golf as long as it’s played once a year. It is funny to see everyone scrambling to put a decent round together after losing their putter early in the round.
I really don’t have any blog material this week. My apologies for not hanging round last Thursday. I had some work to do and had to split a bit early. Now I’m scrambling for blog material. Serves me right. Therefore, I thought it would the perfect time for another true PW story. I know what you’re thinking, not another PW story about PW’s fashion woes, my 3rd grade President’s Challenge, car troubles, or my hatred for country music. If you haven’t read any of these posts about the unfortunate saga that is my life, then feel free to read them. After all, if you haven’t read them, they’re “new to you”. My recent visit to southern Florida for a family reunion to celebrate my mom’s 75th birthday reminded me of a trip I made a long time ago to West Palm Beach, FL. My brothers and I decided to go golfing one morning, just the three of us. We are all new to the game back then and were having a pretty good time. Then on one of the holes, I hit my approach shot just over the back of the green into some Florida mulch between a couple of palm trees. I had an open chip shot to the flag which was all the way at the front of the green about 35-40 yard away. So, as I’m standing over my ball, lining up my chip shot, I feel this excruciating pain radiating up both my legs. I step away from my ball and look down to see what the hell was going on. As luck would have it, I was standing on a mound of fire ants. Hundreds of those freakin’ ants began crawling all over my shins! Damn! I dropped my pitching wedge and start slapping the little stinkers off my legs as they continued biting the crap out of me. Within just seconds, they had swarmed all over me. At this point, I’m cursing up a storm, jumping around like a homicidal maniac, waving my arms and kicking my legs all the while screaming about why I bother to visit this God forsaken state of Florida in the first place. The ants were everywhere, so I had to take off my shoes and socks and threw them on the green as I finished up swiping and killing off the rest of those little buggers off me. All of this happened in the span of about 1-2 minutes. Once the fire ants were off of me, I regained my composure and walked back to my ball (barefoot), trying to ignore the stinging pain of the venom that was starting to take effect, all the while muttering about how I hated Florida and proceeded to take my chip shot. The ball hit the green and rolled and rolled and rolled and WENT IN! BIRDIE! Now, you all know that PW’s game does not include making birdies. I was still fuming about the ants and wrenching in pain to enjoy my rare birdie moment. At this point, it’s been about 3-5 minutes since the whole episode began and I wondered why I hadn’t heard a word from either of my brothers. The reason for that was because they were bent over laughing so hard they couldn’t get the air out of their lungs to actually laugh out loud. It was at that moment that I realized how funny that whole chain of events was. The group behind us was laughing because they saw the whole thing. So, I picked up my shoes and socks on the way to the hole, took my ball out of the hole and got back in my cart. My legs eventually healed but they did scar up and the pain stuck around for a few days. But I got a birdie out it.
Can you believe we have only three weeks left in the 2020 GCCGL season? Man, it goes fast. After a huge week last week, China Virus is nursing a comfortable lead. It is virtually impossible for them to screw this up with only three weeks left but stranger things have happened. For the most part, it is a battle for 2nd place between Quid Pro Crowe, Goat My Fairway 2.0 and Cupcake Exotics. By the way, have I mentioned how much I love the GCCGL team names this year! How about a shout out to Swiper for his guest blog last week. Good job Swiper! One more note before I finish up, how in the world does PW’s handicap go down 2 strokes on the Willows Front? I know I’ve been playing a little better lately but something doesn’t seem right. I think CC and LG are cookin’ the books again. Just saying. Sorry guys, it’s not an official GCCGL blog without someone complaining about the HC.
The big winners this week were Gout My Fairway 2.0 with 26 points. They were led by The Politician and Snoodles who grabbed 7.5 points each. Dixon Plainview ended their losing ways with 24 points. They were led by Goldie who took 8.5 points and shot a 35! The low net winners were (A/B) Goldie with a low net 32 and Swiper again (C/D) with a low net 34. Congratulations to the winners! We play this week on the Willows back. The schedule is set! I hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ‘em straight!
PW – GCCGL co—commissioner
