(Editors Note: This post was written by our very good friend Bekavac, aka "The Bek", aka "The Sultan". The Bek went to Princeton, so he's prone to douchebaggery and wordiness. Against better judgment, we've decided to run this post in it's entirety. Do yourself, print it out and read it on the toilet.)
I used to think that golf was a game and not a sport. But then I found out that after 18, with 10 Yuenglings and a few rips from a cigarette shaped one-hitter, I'm exhausted. Also, the whole hitting it dead straight 300 yards, rather difficult.
I’ve noticed a surprising lack of golf coverage. Surprising in that a Jew from Miami and a Black Irishman from Danbury, Connecticut don’t golf. (That’s Black Irish in that he’s Protestant, not black Irish like Kevin McDougal, quarterback for the ’93 Fightin’ Irish. May Glenn Foley rot in hell.) Therefore, I, as a person who’s golfed for roughly 9 months, feel that in my third trimester with the game I am qualified to give you all a thorough undertaking of this sport, along with musings on other matters athletico. However, as golf is a man’s chance to accessorize, I have sunk a lot of money into this fucking game, and I’ll be goddamned if I let that go to waste.
I will start by giving course reviews. As I, like the failed fledgling that I am that cannot leave the nest, travel within a 20 mile radius to the courses I play. I plan, however, to work out in concentric circles to more and more courses. Fuck, I just took my first golf trip to Ocean City, Maryland. Ocean City – and this is something Ruben and Riley can never understand – is the summer hotspot for Western Pennsylvania. There are endless arguments over which is the faster route – D.C. or Baltimore. There are the Big Pecker and Dough Roller T Shirts. There’s the Dumsers Shakes and Embers v. Bonfire Crab Legs debates. There’s the photo keychains. What I also found out is that there’s some excellent golf courses as well. But, I will hold off on those until a later date. As a quick regression, I called Stewart Cink. He’s a solid, top 50 golfer who has been under par in all the majors this year. Oh, and I guess I should give big ups to my ninja Tom Watson for making it such a memorable The Open Championship. The best bad weather player in golf history, Rick Reilly kept saying. EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT THE WEATHER WAS PRETTY GOOD, YOU DOUCHENOZZLE. But, somewhere between the shots of Patron and the Bud Light Aluminum bottle No. 7 at Seacrets in Ocean City, I called Stewart Cink. Then I asked a girl to ice down her titties and place them over my face like a wet towel.
First course on the tour: Butler’s Golf Course. Woodside course.
I will do one 18 a week. Butler’s has two 18s. I will not do more because I will be giving you an in-depth look at these courses. Also, I don’t feel like doing more than one 18 at a time.
Ah, the home course. On Thursday nights, me and 20 or so gentlemen twice my age, golf in a league called Odds and Ends. We intrepid group of funeral directors, plaster men, accountants, county police officers, and retirees, duff our way around these 36 holes of “championship” golf in Elizabeth Township. This is the ultimate public. The key words are “trees” and “moist.” Everything is always wet. Also, the putts that look like they should break 5 feet, break 5 inches. And the dead center cut ones break like you’re putting on the roof of a 2003 Saturn coupe. But, like all ultimate publics, you get your 38 bucks worth.
It’s broken into two eighteens: Woodside and Lakeside. Woodside is the old course. It starts with a 480 yard par five that should be a par four. Downhill, and crushable like a Parliament. Only hazard worth mentioning is a bunker on the front of the green. Even light hitters like myself are on in two. It’s followed by an uphill, 150 straightforward par 3, guarded by two bunkers. You will end up in one of these bunkers. You will do this because, you will go to the driving range and hit to a slightly downhill 150 yard marker with your 8 iron. You will think “I can hit my 8 iron 150 yards.” You will then take out your 8 iron and fried egg it into the bunker. You will do this because you are me.
Holes 3, 4, and 5 will be grouped together because I score a 5 on all four of these par 4s. Here’s what they are. Shortish, 370 yards or so, with hill sloping down on the left, narrow fairway, and woods OB to the right. Aim left to avoid the woods. 56 wedge it to the front of the green because you can NEVER HIT THAT FUCKING CLUB RIGHT. 3 putt. 5s around. Drink a High Life Light. Move onto 6.
Hole 6 is an uphill par 4. Like most uphill holes, this one licks taint. Plug your drive into the aforementioned moistness of the fairway. Dig out your ball and towel it off, motherfucking it all. Then, after learning your lesson about your 8 iron on hole 2, take out your seven iron. Blade the shit out of that sonuvabitch and fly the green into the back left bunker. Blast out onto the fringe two feet in front of you. Two putt, or three putt, and move onto the glorious #7.
Ah, Number 7 Woodside at Butlers. If there is ever an emergency landing needed for the space shuttle, it can be done on this massive 580 yard, wide-ass-open par 5. The weird thing is, the drive is going into a crevice 240 yards in the fairway. OB is right for us slicers; a small pond is left for you major hookers. All in all, as long as you see your ball, it’s ok. Because 300 yard fore, and 300 yards wide awaits you for every conceivable draw or fade you could put on a golf ball. It’s all in play, and everything’s safe. Green is very slanted though. Very scoreable though, even for me.
Hole 8 is the toughest on Woodside; the highest handicap on the course. A 440 yard, blind double dogleg up and down and back up. Actually a tough hole to get on the green accurately in two. If you’re left, you’re blind to the green at 180. If you’re right, you have a clean look, at about 240 uphill. Good luck on that one Villegas. Bring your humility on that one.
Hole 9 is such an unremarkable 150 yard flat par 3, I refuse to give it ink. Actually, take out your 8 iron on this one. It’ll work. Fried egg into the bunker front left. Congrats. Buy a shitty hot dog. Make the turn.
Hole 10 is a straight as an arrow par 4 with an Amoeba shaped bunker in the landing zone right. If you are like me, and for all intensive purposes this article is assuming that you are, you will land in this bunker. Surprisingly easy to get out of with a six iron though, as the sand here is actually concrete mix which is, you guessed it, moist.
Hole 11 is a forgettable par 4 with one feature: a turf farm. What is a turf farm? Settle down spaz; a turf farm is an area on the grounds where a golf course grows sod grass for placement on other parts of the course. Golf courses need grass? Yes they do, Bocephus. But aren’t most turf farms somewhere in the back, near the maintenance shed? Yes, but not at Butler’s. Here, it’s right off the 11th fairway. If you land there, as I most definitely do, you are asked to take it off the turf farm: a virginal spot of fairway in the midst of woods. In the somber words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez: fuck that shit. Rip your 7 iron and take a divot the size of Ted Koppel’s hair out. Land on the green, par for the first time of the day, and spit in the eyes of the founders of this game.
Hole 12 gives me a chance to talk about my father. I love my dad. He and I work together, have missed probably a dozen Steeler games since I was 3, and golf a lot together. Hole 12 let me see something sons dream about: watching their father have a meltdown. Hole 12 is another uphill par 4. To the right and left of a wide fairway are trees. My dad, like his son, goes right. He lands in the trees. He, like Klaus Kinski in Fitzcarraldo, feels that if he exerts his will, his shot will not hit the 40 year old oak 20 feet in front of him. This takes him 6 strokes. On stroke seven, his perseverance pays off as he scalds a wormburner right to the right of the green. He drives up furiously in the cart as I hold back laughing. Jumps out, removes his putter, and smashes it into the ground. Ironic because he’s 40 yards from the green at this point. Putter head stays in the ground as the shaft goes flying. This elicits an MGM Lion like roar from him as he flings the shaft. Proceeds to take a 10 and walks to hole 13. Let’s do the same.
Hole 13 is billed on the Butler’s website as having a beautiful view of the Youghiogheny River. Pfft. You can barely see this creek. However, the kayaking is lovely. So is hole 13. A fun, downhill 130 yard par 3 with a massive bunker front left and a big, flat green. Butler’s loves front left bunkers. Right and long is a 8 foot depression off the green. You should par this hole, Corky.
Hole 14 is Hole 7’s little brother. A big, open downhill 550 yard par 5. Enjoy. And you get to use the club you “crush” at the driving range but “FAIL” on the course: the 3 wood. The 3 wood at the driving range makes you think “I should play this off the tee. I hit it as far as my driver without the slices and hooks.” The 3 wood on the course makes you think about bashing yourself in the head with it and carrying another putter.
Hole 15 is another fun, 150 yard par 3. 14 yards into a circle green with a horseshoe of pines behind it. It’s slightly downhill, and you will take out the 8 iron again. You have learned your lessons with the 8, and you are confident that you will green this one. You will hit the green, and roll off. You will put the 8 iron away.
Hole 16 is a long par four that is flat to a wide landing area, then gets tighter as it approaches the green uphill. It gives me a chance to talk about my favorite club: My Mizuno 3 Iron Hybrid CLK Fli-Hi with Extra Stiff Shaft. That’s right cunts, the same club Sean O’Hair (who) calls his favorite club in my requisite subscribed issue of Golf Digest. On this hole, I once put a ball through the drink display of a MOVING cart girl’s cart from 230 away. It was her damn fault.
Hole 17 and 18 are going to be wrapped up in unison for the following reasons: they are long par fours along the road back to the clubhouse, they look at the convent across the road and you can sometimes see nuns out for a stroll, and that they are nice easy holes to do as you are coming in from your terrible, 6 hour odyssey around this place.
All in all, Woodside is solid. Next time, I will do Lakeside. But, before I go, it’s time for me, Mark Schlereth, and Marcellus Wiley’s QUICK HITS!
The Pirates fire sale is acceptable. It can include Jack Wilson, but should not include Freddy Sanchez, if it can be helped. I would be happy if they would have received 5 maple bats, some GoGurt, and a $5 gift card at Hot Topic for Adam Laroche. Even if they received some AA fodder for him, that is acceptable. Plus, the SS looks like he can field and hit lightly. So, way to change direction boys.
My mom says, because she’s my mom and a total dear, that Ben reminds her of me. This is probably because we are both blonde haired and have enormous heads. She also accosted him by bear hugging him on the club level at the Pete during Pitt v. Miami (OH). However, mom, here’s another similarity you can count. Hooking up with girls with a history of treatment for mental illness.
Albert Pujols is the greatest first baseman of all time. Better than Gehrig.
Champagne for my real friends; real pain for my sham friends.
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