Hey…how in the world do some guys drink beer and play sports? I like a cold brewski now and then but chug-a-lugging and running around? No huh.
One does get thirsty while playing sports, that’s a fact, but here’s another. Comes from a comedian (wish I could tell you his name, sorry) who said this:
“Played baseball as a kid, started drinking beer as a young man, got old, started playing softball, and then started drinking beer after playing softball. I loved playing softball because it was slowed down enough where I could feel like I was playing like a 17 year old. Crushing the ball, making great stops, diving for balls…it was great. Now, as an old guy, unless a ball is hit right at me it’s a base hit. Ain’t none of that diving anymore. Might spill my beer.”
To me, playing sports and drinking beer won’t ever be mistaken as old friends. I know I probably sit in the minority but I am convinced thanks to a lesson learned on the golf course.
Many years ago I was at the very first company conference I’d ever attended. It was a big event, held in a suburb of Palm Springs, CA.We got to play golf at this shindig and that too was another first – I’d caddied as a kid but never actually played the game.
So I practiced before the trip, went to the driving range early the morning of our game, and in general felt pretty good about things. As luck would have it, I ended up in the Vice President foursome.
When something like that happens, it can define a career. I was with my guardian angel VP who knew and loved me, the VP of marketing, and - raising the status of our foursome - the President of our company. I’ve always been pretty good at working the etiquette of those situations, so I wasn’t worried. Looked forward to, it actually.
Part of the reason came a week before the deal. My VP buddy confided, “Kevin, I have never played the game; I’m not a sports guy at all, so you help me out, okay?”
“Sure.”
Well, people, he was not lying about his abilities. By the fourth hole – and considering the value of that PGA golf course we played – he’d moved more real estate than Century 21 the previous year. Maybe the entire 1990’s. I was doing okay.
Around the 8th hole or so, President guy says, “It’s about time we get some beers, ain’t it?”
What? It’s 9 AM! But I more than understood I better grab a beer when they do, even if I only sip and spill the thing for the next ten holes.
President guy drinks beer like it’s his job, marketing VP tries to keep up, and my buddy is grateful for something to end his misery. He says, “Put me down for 145 right now, I’ll drive the cart and drink beer.”
Now there’s more of a spotlight on me and I inadvertently chug-a-lug that first beer. I guess it’s the “dry heat” they always talk about out there, but those twelve ounces of fermented grain get me supercharged and I get the giggles.
Prudence dictates that I speak when spoken to with this group, and then only in golf clichés, meaning outright laughter is a no-no. I keep up on that, but the giggles begin to take on a life of their own. Are you with me? Good! Now I have to back up half a step. Don’t lose your spot here; meet you back on the 9th tee.
In golf, professionals pretty much hit the ball where ever they want while decent amateurs know they have issues with their swing and adjust for it. The rest of us furrow our brows, swing furiously and, “let the big dog hunt,” hoping someone saw where it went. President guy fell somewhere between the first and second group. He owned a slice that made you swallow your tongue the first time you saw him hit. What’s a slice? (From ‘About.com)
Definition: "Hook" describes a trajectory or ball flight in which the golf ball starts out to the right (for a right-handed golfer) before curving severely back to the left and missing its target to the left. (Reverse those directions for left-handed golfers.) A hook is the opposite of the slice. Hooks are often the bane of amateur golfers and, for amateurs, can be tough to straighten out. A popular golf saying is, "You can talk to a slice but a hook won't listen."
To explain further: please picture a regular player standing on a line parallel to the direction he wants to hit it, with the ball at his feet. When he actually hits it, the ball might go a little this way or that, sometimes he even tops it and watches it dribble twenty feet from his shoes, but it heads down that-a-way towards the hole.
Back on the first tee, President boy- let’s call him Mike - stood at a forty-five degree angle to the ball and the direction we all looked for it to take. I watched as he waggles at the ball and wondered what in the world he’s doing but kept my mouth shut.
He rared back, swung viciously, and the ball took off for Mexico. Due south, baby. There we stood facing west towards the Pacific and he cranked a howitzer blast for the Baja.
As we watched, the ball magically curved back toward the United States, stopped and showed its passport, waved at the people in customs, headed back to the golf course and landed softly in the middle of the fairway. His ball traveled seven hundred miles as the crow flies, only 225 down the fairway, but it ended up a great shot.
“And that’s how you do that,” he muttered with great smugness.
We all stumbled over ourselves to give him affirmation and headed down towards our next shot.
Got all that? Okay, back to the 9th hole…
President Mike’s had enough beers to make us wonder if he’s trying to prop the brewing company’s stock up all on his own. He’s at the tee, lining up his crooked shot, talking to no one in particular only because he’s used to everyone listening to him all the time anyway.
“What you have to – hiccup – do is check the wind speed, see where you want to be on the fairway, watch out for the trees along the fence and the road, and then…”
With a rather creative flurry of cuss words and a mighty backswing he finishes he sentence, and punctuates the whole thing with the thwack of a well-struck ball. It soars out over to our left, out over the trees, the fence, and the road. We all wait for the inevitable curve with silent appreciation. I giggle.
And as you might guess – seeing as this wouldn’t be much of a story without this twist – the ball keeps going straight.
Moments later, the six man landscape crew in whose truck bed the ball lands are also enlightened. The crew – once they see they’re all okay – hollers out a list of nouns and verbs outlining their opinion of us. The list is mostly body parts and things about our mother, all in the beautiful language of the Conquistadors.
Well, it’s a shot only a pro golfer could intend to hit but Mike’s hit it. No one says or does anything, but I am giggling likes it’s my job and I realize I have another ‘issue.’ It has to do with an old joke where the teacher asks one of her kids to use a word that begins with ‘u’ in a sentence and Little Johnny devilishly says, “Urinate,” and the teacher sternly says, “Use it in a sentence or you’re staying after school.” Johnny says, “I’m fixin’ to have nine dreams tonight, and I hope urinate.”
Giggling and dancing around a little bit, I look at tree bark, trying to see the face of Jesus in the hopes I can swindle a miracle from it and not pee my knickers right there on the 9th hole, all the while laughing. Hard. Know what else? None of the other three guys are laughing. Know what elser? I wasn’t making a sound. Here’s a keen observation – one risks many muscle pulls when one laughs that hard and doesn’t make a sound.
Luckily none of the other boys are thinking about making eye contact. A few moments pass and I think for sure there is an inhale in my near future. Once that happens, I reason, I’ll be golden (pun intended!). Then our president speaks.
“Holy cow, if I have another * burp* beer I’m gonna turn into Jerry Lewis out here.”
Everyone laughs. I laugh a little too loud and through the power of presidential suggestion, sound much like Jerry Lewis. One stinkin’ beer and I’m a basket case.
The rest of the round lives as a blurry but picturesque video in my memory and, thanks to the amount of beer the others guzzled, no one remembered my giggly, cheek-hurting, laughter. And that was the last time I’ve had a beer and played any sport.
In an ending fit for a movie of the week (The Nutty Golfer) however, I chip a thirty footer in from the fringe (pulled it deep out of my large intestine, someone said. I’d have to agree.) and legitimize the fantastic, vice presidential foursome score we turn in. But who’s gonna question a tipsy company VP or President, anyway?
