Big Rick, A Lob Wedge And A Ninety-eight Yard Three Wood

A couple of recent posts have mentioned Big Rick. He's not a real friend. Well he is. We wouldn't be friends if we could find other people to put up with us.

Every now and again, Rick leaves a comment on a post. He did today on a post I wrote a couple of days ago. It involved Waffle House and golf. And the fact that he and I are not very good golfers.

In Rick's defense, a part of his failure to score well on Sunday was my fault. I've been telling him to get a lob wedge for awhile now. For those of you that aren't golfers, a lob wedge is the most lofted club in your bag. If you've ever watched Phil Mickelson make a huge swing from nearby the green and the ball goes way high in the air and stops an inch from the hole, that's the club he was using to make that shot.

I've made a shot like that a couple of times. Maybe once. I thought or dreamed about it once. You decide.

Rick got a new lob wedge for our round last weekend. He wanted to use it. The problem was the opportunity never really presented itself; so, he decided to use it when a sand or pitching wedge was called for. This led to some less than optimal results. This cost him a few strokes; but, that's the cost of education.

OK. The second part of the story.

I've been playing golf for maybe eight years. Rick took it up a couple of years after me because our friends played, but there's more to that story.

One day one of our friends announced that he had entered us as a team in the Don Sutton Celebrity Tournament in Destin, Florida.

Don Sutton is a member of Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame, having won 324 games. At the time, he was an announcer for the Atlanta Braves. He had a tournament each year that benefited St. Jude's Hospital in Memphis (?)

Rick was instructed to buy some clubs and go to the driving range. He did the former but not the latter. He got a basic set and several of us contributed to collection.

One of our friends was a member of a private country club and invited us to play, to tune up, or in Rick's case to see what a golf course looked like from inside the fence, before the tournament.

I'll limit my description of the day to one hole.

Being a private club, the practice range had nice pyramids of balls to hit at each station. We hit some balls and went out to play a round.

We got to a hole that had an elevated tee box looking down to a dog-leg left fairway (probably a seventy-five or so foot drop in elevation) that, for you that are golfers, had a big risk-reward factor. In non-golf terms, you could try to hit it along the left side of the fairway, but you had to hit it over about fifteen fairway bunkers (sand). To carry, your shot had to go something over 200 yards. If you were successful, you cut fifty or sixty yards off your next shot. The alternative was to hit to the right side and add the yardage.

Rick listened to the explanation and looked down on the battlefield. "What demented #%^#&* @^(&$ designed this ^&$&#( hole?"

A couple of weeks later we travelled to Destin for the big tournament, Rick's second foray into the wonderful world of golf.

At the range, there were the same nice pyramids of balls that we hit. There were lots of sports celebrities there. Each team had a famous guy, or a relatively famous guy. Our guy was Brad Clontz, a relief pitcher who until a year or so before had been with the Braves.

Charity tournaments are played "best ball." That means everyone hits each shot; but, you all go to where the best shot hit among the group landed, and hit again from there. Will it surprise you that we for the most part, hit from where Brad Clontz' ball landed?

The sixth or seventh hole was a par five. "Our" second shot landed ninety-eight yards from the pin. I know this because the carts had GPS receivers on them. We gathered around the "best ball" and considered our shots. For me this is about a pitching wedge, on this hole, a nine iron, because the green was elevated from the fairway maybe ten or so feet.

Rick asked me what he should hit. I told him to hit a wedge. "No, I haven't hit my three wood yet, I believe I'll try it." Some discussion later, he swung the three wood.

It left his club head travelling maybe five feet off the ground and hit the front elevation of the green at maybe, what?, a hundred and twenty miles an hour? The ball bounced up in the air, hit the flag, and dropped into the hole.

Eagle.

We high-fived for a bit and ragged on Rick.

After finishing the round there was a cocktail party at the club house where the paying people could mingle with the celebrities. I was wandering around when I heard Don Sutton say to Joe Simpson (another Braves announcer) and a table of other celebrities, "Guys, have you met Rick? Rick tell them about your eagle...." "So I looked at the yardage, a hundred yards, and figured the three wood would do it....." He finished the saga and the table erupted in laughter.

Golf with friends is a great pastime.