GolfPrick Ralph Squirrels:
a tale of two golf games, aka Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Runandhide, or Heckle and
Jeckle, or the two stooges, or the saga of schizoid, mental midget,
choke-dog split-personalities
For Ralph Squirrels, the Templegusta Senior Club Championship experience
was unfortunately an unforgettable one, albeit a familiar one to all
pricks who
 have
played with these two guys before. For 18-holes, one guy hit 14 of
18 greens and had 10 or 12 birdie putts inside 20-feet missing all but
two. But, five or six of those were from awkward almost
un-makeable downhill positions at some of the trickier pin placements
(5,6, and 7) of the day. 75 (36-39) would have been a respectable
score for a 5-handicapper for one day of the 36-hole two-day event.
Unfortunately, these scores were posted on the front-nine of day one and
the back nine of day two. In between, this other guy, Ralph
Squirrelly, who's probably a 20-handicapper at best, shows up and
proceeds to shoot 90 (44-46), the back-nine of the first day and the
front-nine of day 2. Included in this bludgeoning were three
skulls, two of them drives, two shanks, an almost whiff, a series of
chunks from wet, gnarly 8 a.m. rough, seven 3-putts, including a Hale
Irwinesque one-handed three-inch scruffed tap-in bogey attempt that went
about two inches.
It all began
to unravel on day 1 and he'd like to blame it on playing in glasses for
the first-time ever due to a bad contact lens prescription that leaves
one eye blurry. But that excuse doesn't hold up because he's
sitting at even par going into number 12 on the Quail Run back nine.
Okay, a three-putt bogey on a medium length downhill putt. No big
deal, right? One over. Then a pulled tee shot on the par-3
13th, and a shanked chip, still an up-and-down for bogey -- no big deal
either. 2 over.
Then comes the
gold-tee short par-4 #14, a real birdie opportunity with a decent drive.
Ralph gets a break on a low drive that barely clears the tree
but winds up through the fairway in some lush three-inch deep rough 30
yards from the green below the left trap. Real problem is it's
sitting up right on top of the grass. Probably another good break
because if it goes down in the rough, it's almost impossible to get it
out.
So an
attempted flop-shot
that is almost a whiff underneath the ball pops it up and moves it about
5-yards. This time it is down in the rough and a second flop
attempt flops it right into the front edge of the bunker. Then,
the awkward bunker shot doesn't make it out of the trap and buries in
the deep sand under the front lip. With one foot out of the bunker
and one-foot more than ankle deep in the soft sand, the next shot just
does barely make it out of the bunker and a two-putt for a seven gives
Ralph Squirrelly one of his most common FUs-- the triple-bogey.
Two three-putts from barely missed greens on #17 and #18 gives Ralph #2
an 8-over for the last seven holes 44.
The saga continues on day 2.
Last in the
flight means first off the tee at 7:48
Sunday. With the anxiety mounting from playing in a tournament
from last place and in a twosome with an unfamiliar partner and waiting
at the tee about five minutes early for the starter, who shows up and
says that due to some snafu with the pairings, it has been decided that
this twosome and the twosome teeing off eight minutes later will be
combined. So 7:56 rolls around and the second twosome has yet to
show on the tee.
About two minutes later after about 20 minutes of waiting on the tee box
and as we are about to hit our tee shots, they show up and are
immediately assessed a two-stroke penalty for being late to the tee
box. This sets a wonderful tone for the beginning of the Sunday
round, as the Colonel, who was assessed the same penalty, can attest.
Needless to say, the easily birdieable par 5 becomes a bogey 6 for
Ralph. After 2 pars on #2 and #3, a bad tee shot and second shot
and a mediocre chip on Dogwood's #4, Ralph's par putt stops about 3
inches from the hole. He approaches the ball to one-hand a tap-in
and scuffs his putter on the green and putts his ball about an inch and
a half. His second tap in attempt successful, he cards another 6.
A 100-yard skulled tee shot and three approach shots later on #5, he
cards his second consecutive double-bogey six.
At 5-over
after five, Ralph's just about toast, But all is not lost and
there are still
chances to make some sort of recovery. So, an absolutely
dead-center perfect tee shot and a second shot that was just as straight
lands Ralph at the bottom of the hill 40 yards below the par-5 #6 green.
Okay, maybe there's still some hope. Then, "clank!" a dead-right
sideways shanked sand wedge puts him in another terrible spot by the
tree and the sand trap on the right. He can't get it up and down
resulting in a third straight six.
Just when you
think it can't get any worse, it really goes downhill
now. Literally. To the bottom of the valley and the rough of
Dolly Parton. A dead skull off the tee (remember, he just shanked
a wedge) two more shots to get to the green and trudging up that hill, a
winded and flustered Ralph three-putts
( yeah, you guessed it) for ANOTHER FUCKING SIX!
Another three-putt on #8, which included another scuffed putt which went
about the first ten feet of a 20-footer for birdie, and a three-putt par
from about 6 feet off the #9 green, gives Ralph a smooth 46 (that's
right forty-SIX!).
The second
nine saw Ralph hit seven of nine greens, have legitimate birdie putts
graze the holes on #4, #5, and #6, and card a semi-respectable 39 back
side. Only semi-respectable because he really should have made two
of the three birdie putts, had back-to-back bogeys on #3 and #4,
including a missed 4-footer for par on the par-5, and a three-putt bogey
on #3. His worst play was on the very reachable par-5 #8, where he
skulled another drive eliminating his chance to reach the green in two.
"It's like
a demon flies in and possesses my mind and body," Squirrels says.
"I need to get Oral Roberts, or Ernest Angley to caddy for me and just
smack me in the middle of my forehead with his palm whenever this guy
shows up. If I could get a hold of this guy, I would absolutely
and positively beat the no-playing sonofabitch to death."
Digger wins
Senior Club Championship
(click to read)
|
