2023 – Week 12

My mom always told me, “PW…. if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything“. I’m trying mom, I’m really trying. It started off innocently enough being scolded about driving the golf cart too fast. “Slow down!“, he exclaimed. “You drive too fast!!“, he yelled. “You’re taking the turns too quick, I almost fell out!!!“, he cried. Of course, when I say “he“, I’m talking about Ollie. He then continued complaining to me about a time when I drove the cart during his backswing. Huh? What are you talking about? When did this happen, a decade ago? Carts make noise when you drive them. Am I missing something here? This was followed by a story about how he was almost killed in a golf cart incident several years back. All this, and we hadn’t even reached the fairway on our first hole.

My dad, rest his soul, used to say, “PW…. when the urge to hurt someone kicks in, take deep breaths and clear your mind for 5 seconds.” Breath in……breath out……IN……..OUT……. The next thing I know, we are in the cart heading to hole #11. It worked! Thanks dad, where ever you are.

Then comes the counting of strokes. The game of golf is tough enough without having to keep track of your opponent’s score as well as your own. Ollie hasn’t hit a green in regulation from the white tees since the Regan administration but for some reason when he plays against me, all of a sudden he’s Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm rolled up into one lean, mean golfing machine. Look, was there a hole or two where I miscalculated and had to be corrected? Yes. But like fellow GCCGL member Rich Parvese said to me, “It’s understandable, you’re not used to counting that high“. That statement epitomizes what the GCCGL PGA event is all about. But that happened once or twice. On the other hand, I lost track of how many times I had to correct Ollie on his score but not only that, I can’t tell you how many times he insisted my score was incorrect when it wasn’t. Even when his own teammate Cupcake was telling him that he was wrong he still insisted. So now he’s miscounting his score as well as mine. Breath George……….breath……. 

The kicker came on #12, the first par 5. As many of you know, PW took a 13 on that hole. It was nothing short of a shit show. After I tap in to save my 13, I bent down and picked my ball up from the cup and began walking back to the cart thinking about how hard it is to shoot a 13 on any hole in golf when all of a sudden I hear Ollie complaining about me “moving” as he is getting ready to tap in to beat me by 6 strokes on that hole. He actually stepped away from his putt to scold me about moving while he was putting. What in the name of holy hell is happening here? What was I supposed to do? Pick up my ball and stand over the hole like a sculpture of some Portuguese God? I have been working on my glutes, but that’s besides the point. Well, that was the last straw. At that moment, PW kind of lost it a little. I looked Ollie in the eye, dropped more than a few expletives and told him I’m going to kick his ass the rest of the round. 

Unfortunately, that did not happen. Although I made up a lot of ground, that Par 5 debacle was too much to overcome and Ollie beat me fair and square (5.5 – 4.5). So I get home, dejected, humiliated and really annoyed. My wife of 32 years picked up on it and I proceeded to tell her my version of the story. She said to me, “PW…. why do you let it bother you? Just ignore it next time“. And then it hit me, Ollie is not annoying. He’s a god damn evil genius! Could it be that these antics are all part of a strategy that’s as old as time itself? Or at the very least, as old as Cletus? Are we all just pawns in his sick, twisted mind games? Was Captain Obvious playing me? Has he been playing us all? After all, he is having a hell of a season and is  currently sitting in 3rd place in the Points Champion standings. Sorry Ollie, it has been a while since you’ve gotten any ink on the blog. I’m not picking on you. The blog just seems to write itself each and every week.

The true beneficiary of all this nonsense was co-commissioner Cupcake who was laughing the entire round. I’m so glad you were thoroughly entertained while my temporomandibular joints were undoubtably causing major damage to my teeth and jaw as the clenching became more pronounced after each hole. 

There was so much to get to this week like a detailed description of PW’s 13 on the first par 5 or Syndrome duffing 4 tee shots in the water on #17 par 3 finishing with a score of 11. Or how Lip Gloss magically found a last second sub, (Brady the Wonder Kid) to play against Cletus who’s team was coincidentally in first place. Speaking of Lip Gloss, I really wanted to spend some time on this week’s blog post addressing KK’s vein-popping temper tantrum regarding the survey results to move the GCCGL PGA Event to align with the Men’s PGA tournament, but I’ve run out of time. Until next week.

Finally, the GCCGL IT department would like to announce a new Chat Box feature located at the top of the GCCGL blog. In order to use the chat box, you will need to register for an account if you do not have one. Please see the simple instructions below.

Step 1 – Scroll down to the bottom right side of the GCCGL home page and select Register in the Login box

Step 2 – You will receive an email with a link. Click the link and select a UserName and a valid Email and select Register

Step 3 – Go back to GCCGL.COM, scroll down to the bottom of the home page and enter in your Username and Password and select Log In

Also, the new Chat Box has been added to the Main Menu so that mobile users can access it.

The big winners this week were Dude, Where’s My Par? who crushed the first place Return of the Cletus (25.5-14.5). They were led of course by Kid Wonder himself, Brady, who took 9 points. Go Putt Yourself narrowly defeated Courtesy Tap-Ins (21.5-18.5). They were led by Goldie who managed 7.5 points. The low net winners were Kreyling (A/B) with a low net 36 and Crowe (C/D) with a low net 34. Congratulations to the winners! It is back to the good old friendly confines of the Pioneer and “friendly” match-play this week. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ’em straight!

The Portuguese Warrior – GCCGL co-commissioner