We had four absolute nutters from Philadelphia last week. Michael, Eric the pro, Leon and Donny.
They were remonstrating on the first tee about the fact that our clubhouse would not serve them beers, as it was before 10am. Leon was looking decidedly shaky and very much had the air of a man in need of a drink. His plight was only resolved on the sixth tee when Eric delved into his bag and miraculously produced a miniature of scotch. I have never seen a man look more relieved and a golf game immediately change so much for the better. Mind you, he had been through a torrid time for five holes with a combination of severe alcohol withdrawal, shocking golf, having to listen to his caddie Craig’s chat and Gary’s jokes.
I was out with Mike, who was excellent company and most accepting of my bad day on the greens. He graciously accepted my monumentally poor read on the eighth, which left his twenty five foot birdie attempt a shy seven feet wide of the hole. Mike joked that maybe I should stick to writing and Eric quipped that it was indeed a ‘hugely illiterate read’. On reflection it was not one of my finest moments.
All was well at the half way house though as the guys stocked up on beers and whisky. Mike being easily persuaded to purchase 8 beers instead of the 6 that he had initially proposed. The conversation went something along the lines ‘6 beers please’ and me going ‘come on eight at least’ and Mike replying, ‘ Ok eight please’. Just as well though, as by the sixteenth tee he had run out. He mentioned that one thing he could do was drink and this manifestly, could not be denied.
One thing that Eric the pro could do was play golf though and his excellent game saw him just slipping by to go two under on sixteen, which was mightily impressive. As was Mike’s beautifully carved three wood second shot round the bunker on the par 5 last, which brought me to exclaim ‘Lee Trevino eat your heart out’. Craig, up front, almost laughed as much as when I told him my ‘why does a Frenchman only have one egg for breakfast?’ joke.
‘Un oeuf is un oeuf!’
But this was no time for joking. The guys seemingly had to get straight down to Leven for a 3pm tee time and were planning to pop into The Crown with Craig afterwards! Now that had the potential to be a most unforgettable experience, if not a culturally explosive one. However, I heard today from Craig that this did not in fact materialize after many, many shots at Leven and a bit of golf too.