Troy on Troy - Golfing with Lance

I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm went off this morning, Wednesday. I actually don't know why I even use an alarm clock because I always wake up before it goes off. Lance, my future son-in-law, and I had a 6:21 am tee time at Woodhaven Country Club in Palm Desert so at 5:15 am, I was up and sitting in front of my computer actually getting some real work done before leaving at 5:45 am. Amy is sitting next to me begging for an early breakfast, she normally eats at 6:00. If you get up at 3:00 am to go to the bathroom, she tries to fool you into feeding her. Yes, our precious Amy is a liar!

I get dressed, grab a few waters for the course, put my golf shoes on and just like that, I am on my way, excited to be playing golf again. My clubs were in the car because this is the second day in a row I was able to get out, lucky me. I pull out of the driveway and it is still pitch black. I have the radio very loud as usual, I do love my music loud. The golf course is about 6 miles from my house, right off the 10 freeway. I am about 1 mile from the exit and suddenly, silence. The radio goes off, a bell rings from inside the car and I loose power. I am officially out of gas. For the first time since I was 26, I ran out of gas. This sucks but I’m doing 70 and I can see the entrance to the off-ramp just ahead of me. I know that once I get to the top of the off-ramp, all I have to do is make a right turn and at the bottom of the hill is a filling station. I think I have a chance but as it turns out, I fall about 20 feet short from my turn. So I am just sitting there thinking now WTF? I do the “Call of Shame” and Lance picks up his phone. He says “No worries.” and says he’ll be there in about 10 min.

I decide to try my AAA card and after a brief run thru of my card number and cell number, the dispatch babe says the guy will be there in less than 20 min. So I call Lance back and tell him to go to the course and I will be there shortly and I make it very clear, “Don’t tell Rebecca!”

The guy from AAA is there right on time, gives me two gallons of gas and I am off. My clock says 6:18. I let Lance know I am back on the road and to have the carts ready.

When I show up, he meets me in the parking lot and I load up my clubs. We are still the first ones on the course for the day. By the way, he had filled up four cups with ice and water, two each. What a nice guy. He’s not sucking up to the future father-in-law either, he is a nice, young man... so far. Actually, Rebecca and I have come to really like Lance and are happy Jen is with him. He is a hard worker and treats Jen and June well. I think he is still a bit nervous around Rebecca because of her first words to him when they met. “If you hurt my daughter, just know I have a shot-gun and a shovel and I know how to use them both!”

For the record, Rebecca edits my blogs for spelling and grammar. She warned me about the gas being low coming home from dinner last night. I am writing this at about 11:00 am and until she read this, I had not told her about running out of gas. I will add her reaction as a footnote at the end, I am sure it will include the word “jackass”.

I hate to skip around, but my pet name for her is Sweetie and hers for me is Jackass. I was Sweetie too until somewhere between the first and second years of marriage. I haven’t been able to pinpoint the date or exact reason for the switch but she claims it was earned… whatever.

Back to golf. Lance took up the game this year right before summer. Part of the perks of working as a bartender at a private country club is free golf when the course is empty. It was 110 degrees plus for over 90 days straight this year so he played a lot of golf. I asked him this morning and he thought somewhere between 30 and 35 rounds. I played with him at least 10 of those and he has really improved. Today he had an off round but still managed to shot just over 100. Same course 3 months ago he would have shot 130 with a bunch of do-overs. I had a good round of 78 including two birdies. We both shot about the same thing yesterday at his course.

The day was really uneventful. No broken windows and only 1 conversation with an elderly woman and her cat. Lance’s tee shot went a bit wayward and she was waiting for us holding the ball. She was very pleasant and thought this was a social event. It took about 5 minutes of conversation about how smart her cat was, yada yada yada and she finally realized we weren’t coming in for coffee. Lance hits his next shot left again so it was off to meet more neighbors. It felt like we were running for President of the HOA.

I gave Lance a bunch of golf balls when he started golfing back in May because you loose a lot when you are a beginner. On about the 6th hole, I looked down at his ball and it was one that I had given him. I could tell because it had a smiley face on the side consisting of two red dots and a green happy mouth on the bottom. My pop had marked all of his balls (golf balls, c’mon people) with this so they could be easily identified in the rough. (OK, one or two hit the fairway.) My dad and I loved playing Woodhaven but it has been awhile. Not since he cut off his thumb with the table saw that I got him for Christmas about 10 years ago. (That is another topic for a blog for sure) He tried to keep playing after that but the pain was too much. Poor guy even used to duct tape the stump to help but no go, he now lives golf thru his other son, Tiger Woods.

All in all a pretty nice morning. The weather has finally broken and it is under 100 for the first time since May. It has been a hot S.O.B. out here in Palm Springs this year. Rebecca says that “This is where lizards come to die.” I am ready for Fall, a chilly 88 degrees, yummy.

OK, here is my all-time favorite golf joke:

A guy hooks his tee shot and the ball ends up sitting in this beautiful field of Buttercups. He gets out of his cart, walks over to his ball, lines up his shot and right as he is about to swing, a Fairy Princess appears from out of nowhere. He’s shocked. She looks at him with her beautiful, blue eyes and says, “Sir, if you pick up your ball and move it out of my beautiful field of Buttercups, I will give you all the butter you want for the rest of your life. The guy looks at her and thinks for a few seconds. Then he says… ”Where the hell were you yesterday when I hit into the Pussy Willows!

OK, the blog is over for today, that was officially number ten. Only 52 more to go. Rebecca just came in and is about to edit the blog and learn of my running out of gas this morning. Her response is to follow.

“You ran out of gas?” then, mild laughter. “How come you didn’t tell me?” As it turns out, she wasn’t that surprised. Am I that predictable? So I asked her, “Why didn’t you have a bigger reaction?” Her answer was “Jennifer is here.” They just got back from picking out the wedding invitations. Rebecca then pipes in, “I would have probably called you a Jackass!” There it is!

Just keeping my legend and mystic alive.

Fight on!

Troy