Jason Sobel over at ESPN asked his readers to email him their best golf stories after he wrote about one of his. In a scant 4 days, he received over 500 reader submissions! Jason highlighted the 10 best
here. I found the grouchiest story, i.e. the one that would most likely happen to me, to be the one submitted by Dan S. from Goldens Bridge, N.Y.:
In the early '90s, I was a guest at the Shady Oak Club in Fort Worth, Texas. Founded by Ben Hogan, by this time, the elderly Ben would spend his days in the grill overlooking the 18th hole. I was 12-over-par after 17 that day and was feeling good about my round until my approach at 18 found one of the greenside bunkers. I grabbed my sand wedge and as I readied to hit the shot, I noticed that Mr. Hogan was standing at the window watching me. Shaking like a leaf and with a bad case of the nervous sweats, I proceeded to blade the ball and hit it directly into the bunker on the opposite side of the green. I then repeated the performance and ended up about one foot from my original lie in the first bunker. As I readied my third bunker shot, I looked up towards the grill window and watched as Hogan sadly shook his head and turned away from the window, probably wondering who had let this bumbling cretin on his course. To this day, when I'm asked about the quality of my game, I honestly reply that I have a game that disgusted Ben Hogan.
It's a great story and one that can be appreciated by any golfer. However, I still think the funniest golf story is "
The Hottest Driver." I still get a chuckle out of that one!
If there was one tournament that I wish that I could have attended this year, it would have been the Canadian Open. It's not because it featured a particularly strong field, nor that it was an exciting competition. The real reason was to witness the drama that unfolded on the 15th hole during the first round involving Jay Williamson and his caddy. You can read
the full story on ESPN, or you can just read the Grouchy Cliff Notes:
- Golfer flies green
- Golfer blames caddy
- Caddy tells golfer to shove it
- Golfer fires caddy
- Caddy dumps golfer's golf balls into the lake
- Golfer hires a new looper from the gallery
How cool would it have been to have seen this happen live and in person?! But the real clincher for me is that Jay only paid his temporary caddy a dozen golf balls for four holes of work! Come on Jay, we all know that you get 'em for free. At least tip the guy a couple of Benjis.
