Tournament golf

I recall the Saturday that McSwain and Big Richard came by the house with their golf clubs in the trunk.

I am a hazy as to whether this was planned or spontaneous, but hey. It was 40 years ago, so I am entitled to a little haziness.

We found ourselves later that day at the golf course in Tishomingo, where a golf tournament was about to begin.

We were there and a tournament was going on, so we decided to enter.

McSwain was a pretty good golfer and entered the championship flight. He was also a good pool shooter and had supplemented his income in college by shooting nine-ball pool in the student union pool hall.

Big Richard and me? Not so much. On my best day, I was a bogey player. I was strong off the tee and good near the pin, but couldn’t play short irons or a wedge if the future of mankind depended on it.

Big Richard’s game was much like mine, except he couldn’t drive or putt.

So, we entered the D Flight, where we belonged.

We found ourselves in a foursome that teed off close to last. We were young back then and simply threw our bags over a shoulder and walked the course, but there was one fellow in our foursome who had rented a cart.

He wasn’t a very good golfer, either, but he had the best-stocked ice chest I have ever seen.

It was a big styrofoam chest he had bungee corded to the back of his cart, and he would get something out at every tee. I got a glance once and noted that he had sandwiches in zipper bags, fruit and enough canned beverages to survive the Oregon Trail.

At the start, he was drinking Diet Coke, but he switched to Bud Light after a few holes.

Big Richard and I were playing what for us was typical golf. A good hole, a bad hole. Another good one, a couple more bad ones.

Our friend who was trekking the Oregon Trail was not playing well at all, but the more he got into his ice chest, the less he seemed to care.

By the back nine, he was having some difficulty navigating the cart path and he consistently had the worst score on each hole, which meant he teed off last on the next one.

Somewhere in the middle of the back nine, I was to tee off first. It was a long par five, easily a driver hole, and it was one of those holes where the tee box wasn’t exactly parallel to the fairway.

Holes like that bothered me because I couldn’t get my feet lined up right and I would either slice or hook.

The Oregon Trailer had had to make a trip to the deep rough after the last green. If you are a golfer - and perhaps if you aren’t - you’ll understand that his sojourn was Bud Light-related.

About the time I pushed my tee into the ground, he drove up in his cart, stopped it several feet ahead of the tee box and just to the right of the fairway.

This disconcerted me, but he dug into his ice chest for a reload, so I figured: What the heck.

That particular drive was the most solid contact I made all day. It was on the screws, as they used to say.

Only problem was that it was off line, too. Way off. My golf ball was four feet off the ground, pushed to the right and screaming straight at The Oregon Trailer’s ice chest as he was leaning into it.

There wasn’t time to yell One or Two, much less Fore, so I watched in panic as the ball crashed the ice chest dead center, sending ice, apples and baloney sandwiches flying.

The Oregon Trailer never flinched. Just pulled out another Bud Light and pointed at my ball, buried in the ice.

“That’s a tough lie,” he said, as he pulled the tab.