2007 Norbeck CC Member-Guest Recap

Here’s some context.

Wednesday, Day One – Pack enough for two months with extra underwear just in case. Drive 3.5 hours in horrible traffic, meet Dave…thank God the rest of his beautiful family is there.

Thursday, Day Two – Up at 4:30 a.m., listen to Dave do white board strategy of each individual hole at Norbeck including a slide show presentation with associated handouts and collateral depicting possible shot scenarios. Grab coffee, race to course. Meet sick group of alcoholics who immediately wish me luck for being paired with Dave…find out quickly I am being shoved into a lion’s den of vodka-fueled debauchery. Highlight of breakfast? I am greeted by the sight of John Bjorn’s hairless Johnson and his two large nuts. Fall deeply in love. Go out and play practice round and finish in the money. This due to well-prepared on-course ball management, multiple doses of neurological drugs mixed with several Bloody Marys and Dave’s incessant, and usually incoherent, yelling of “roll the rock” every two minutes. I’m paired with Z and Tarbs so the day goes quickly, as do two cases of beer and a liter of vodka, which I am informed was breakfast.

Après the round, I learn to appreciate something called a “Dan Smith,” creatively named after Dave’s brother-in-law…Dan Smith. The complex recipe calls for a base layer of vodka, measured by up-ending the handle and then reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by two additional shots of vodka for every 6 oz. serving to allow for quick readers and finally, to avoid combustion, the addition of a trace element of fruit. During Member Guest this is generally prepared either by the guy from the janitorial staff working the night shift or one of the cart guys who was instructed on the complex formula and promised extra doughnuts if he came in pre-6 a.m. to mix the initial 10 gallons consumed before breakfast.

Friday, Day Three – (Sophia’s 6^th Birthday) Up at 4:30 a.m. for an 8 a.m. tee time. Slam coffee and go over pre-game handouts with bios of all opponents including financial status, sexual predilection and latest Rorschach test results. Back a little sore and I’m developing an unhealthy appetite for early a.m. alcoholic beverages. Get to course; take pre-game dump, then go hit balls for five minutes in preparation for the first match. Unfortunately, the practice of actually “practicing” before teeing off is frowned upon by the “gang”…a loosely defined group of affable alcoholics whose combined net worth is greater than most third-world countries.

Despite all my efforts to “blend in,” I am spotted and immediately called a pussy…this by my glassy eyed partner who has already consumed six beers and a Dan Smith. Of course, it is almost 7 a.m. and he is probably behind the rest of the crew now assembling. As he hands me a gin and tonic someone left on the seat of our cart and right before I can get out a tepid “thank you,” he starts yelling in his decidedly outside voice, “It’s OK, it’s what pussies drink”…and we’re off.

Nonetheless, I play well enough to win two out of three matches, the third a tie we should have won if I could have capped Davy at 17 beers by the turn (not counting the two Dan Smiths slammed during lunch). I limit my daily consumption to a couple of beers and two vodka drinks chased by my normal complement of drugs. This results in the expected shout-out “what a pussy” to the 100+ hanging out after finishing their matches. Start to respond and quickly realize crowd resembles the mob of zombies from Michael Jackson’s music video “Thriller.” Retreat to locker room and ask attendant to hide me, somewhere. The guy is apparently a friend of Dave’s and I’m relegated to slinking back to the next painful agenda item: “The Skills Contest”.

Dave tells me I have to hit in the long drive competition after he stripes one 275. I have my shoes off and am drinking heavily to escape the scene unfolding all around me: Grown men screaming obscenities at any poor bastard foolish enough to get up and hit. I approach the mass of humanity determined to make Davy proud. My “best of three drives” goes a whopping 185, we lose, get called a pussy by Dave and I begin to notice an unfortunate trend developing.

Half a dozen beers later, we leave, get to Dave’s and as we stumble in I sense trouble. Enter house where his sweet daughter Sofia is celebrating her 6^th birthday waiting for Daddy to get home. Since I don’t know where I’m sleeping, I watch along with the family as he passes out singing what he later claims was a Celtic version of “Happy Birthday.” At the time it sounds like two Cape buffalo with gas pain. Nonetheless, Sophia, who had the misfortune of being born during Member Guest week, happily tucks Dave in and day three is in the books.

Saturday, Day Four – Up at 4:30 a.m. Dread leaving house. Fake heart attack, get called a pussy, by Dave, start to rebut then remember who I’m talking to. I hand him a warm beer left over from last night and we’re officially underway. Play two matches well enough to win flight and feel like I really am having a heart attack because I know what’s coming: Play-offs. Dave, in his best Knute Rockne, tells me, “Don’t worry; it doesn’t matter,” as he starts drinking diet soda and meditating. I have been here before and witnessed Dave’s gentle demeanor evaporate after I hit a poor shot. His encouraging remark is something like, “nice shot asshole, I meant the other left,” which he yells out to the swelling gallery.

Flashback to 2001: Left with an impossible shot under a low hanging tree on hard-pan by my partner, I scrape out a miracle 6-iron to the far fringe of the green, Davy slops one down to 12 feet and I just miss the sliding bender on a green running about an 11 on the Stemp meter. Dave calls me a pussy and I go into therapy for the following six years.

2007 brings another chance for the pain to subside; we make it back to the finals, due in no small part to my steady, if unremarkable play. I leave it all on the field of honor, subjugating my personal well being for that of Team Ryan. Hitting drives consistently 190 or less so I might be in position to unleash the feared utility weapon on our unsuspecting foe. This while letting Dave get the adoration from mammoth tee shots placing him 150 yards ahead of me, then, as he drives directly to his ball telling me and anyone within a mile or so of his loud mouth, “Daddy hits it far.” Better yet, while walking back to my tee shot, I, and anyone within three fairways, hears him yelling what a pussy I am for hitting it so short. I begin thinking of ways to kill him.

Back to present. We are on hole two of finals, alternate shot play, I tee off my expected 190 to the second cut leaving my partner in excellent position to do what he does best…you know, “the big boys hitting the big shots.” I now am thinking we can do this, I am unusually focused, my incessant shaking has even subsided and I feel an icy calm overtake me. We ARE going to win this; Davy is going to sauté a 5-iron placing me in range of my utility weapon. I sit watching, as I have watched him countless times stripe a mid-iron just where he wants it. He swings and I watch. I then ask him why he hit it into the woods? That’s not where we diagrammed it this morning during our pre-game “red dot” exercise. I console him, quietly telling him it’s OK to lose…again…but after I shake my way around 45 competitive holes I feel it’s my responsibility to make this right. So I hack it out of deep rough to the center of the fairway. Davy hits it to about 15 feet, center cut. The guy we’re playing, who’s an 18, proceeds to hit a 240-yard hybrid to six feet in three. I hit my putt on line but leave it six inches short, we lose, get called a pussy, by Dave.

Can’t wait for next year! Or maybe I’ll save myself the drive and just slam the car door on my nuts. It might be more enjoyable.