The First Annual Potluck Sports Golf Gala Presented by Fishbowls

Posted by Iroquois Plisken

It's been...never...since we wrote about golf on here, despite what the sidebars say. So, we'll take this time to showcase the inaugural PLS Golf Gala. Slate was in town this weekend and, by virtue of the fact I have to mention that, should indicate that this does not happen very often. On Friday, we gathered our things and headed to the local course to get in a round of 18. As this site indicates, Slate was relieved to begin playing golf again, as it is quite unpleasant this time of the year. Sunny Florida again proves why living up North is overrated. But that is another column for another time (and maybe another site).

The round took place at the Hilaman Golf Course in "beautiful" Tallahassee, FL. Overall, it was a fairly challenging course. You could definitely tell that the course had been purchased from country club. Most municipal courses in Florida are by and large flat. Hilaman was actually quite striking in its elevation changes, some holes having a 20+ ft. elevation change from tee box to green. Some highlights from the event:

- It was evident that neither party had played for quite some time. If I owned a digital camera (or any camera, really), I would photograph the score card and upload it. Suffice it to say, we were going the opposite way of good scores.

- At one point, I got marked down for a lower score than what I actually had. I went back to change it and Slate busted out a quality Simpsons reference (paraphrased): "You know, Iroquois, the traditional way to cheat at golf is to lower your score." Well played, Octavio.

- I spent more time at the beach than David Hasselhoff. Chuckle, chuckle. But, seriously, I sucked out loud.

- Slate had his own problems. He was pretty much a walking threat to any house on the course. I think he might have hit 4 or 5 houses and might have put out a car window. They have no proof, though.

- Hole #4 on the course contains one of my greater enemies in golf: water in the front. For some reason, stuff chokes me up every time. We eventually had to skip Hole 4 because there was a massive bottlenecking effect going on.

- For all of the bad stuff, there was a fair amount of positive things to take away. Hole #13 is tailor made for guys like Slate, who have this really terrible flaw in their swing. For some reason--get this--he swings left handed. What a joke; he must fancy himself some sort of trick golfer. Anyhow, he's tuned his driver to give him a bit of a draw and roll on perfect contact and he blasted the shot around a dogleg left. It was quite beautiful.

- Something positive about my round...let's see. I had near perfect putting lines. That's really all I can claim I did well.

With this additional space, I'm going to take a stand on a soapbox. Golf is one of those games that really needs to be fun because it can be so inherently frustrating. If you slump in basketball, say, you can contribute in other ways to the game. Golf is pretty much self-contained. Therefore, there should be two sets of agreed upon rules. There are pro rules, like the ones in use on the PGA.

There should also be the layman rules. I don't know what these rules would be but they should exist. One thing I'd suggest is stopping at double par. You've already embarrassed yourself enough beforehand. We've probably all been stuck behind people who suck and show no courtesy to other parties by not letting them go through but don't want to be big enough jerks to go get a ranger. True experience: I was once stuck behind a group of players who were so unfamiliar with the game they were actually hitting the ball backwards at one point. Double par is a good compromise between stopping the bleeding and keeping pace of play. Everything in these casual rules should also be a playable hazard (use of the foot and hand wedge encouraged in moderate doses). Sometimes, trying to play impossible shots is fun!

Anyhow, the event was a rousing success. Afterwards, we attended a philanthropy dinner wherein money was raised to support the continued preservation and expansion of a reserve for the Jackalope. Interestingly enough, Ted Turner made an appearance. I think we all remember the incident from last cocktail party. Poor fellow didn't know he just bet CNN in a poker game. C'est la vie, Ted.