Golf Dreams for Real

In my REM sleep, I’ve had so many dreams about golf. I still do even though I’ve been retired from the PGA Tour/Senior-Champions Tour since 2005. Sometimes, these dreams are humorous. Oftentimes, they involve me being frustrated.

The golf dream that I have more than any other is failure to make my tee time in a tournament. Yet, throughout all of my amateur and pro golf careers, I never failed to make my tee time. So, why this dream so often? WEIRD!

In the U.S.G.A.’s Rules of Golf booklet, Rule 6-3a says if a player arrives at his or her starting point, thus the first tee, within five minutes after his or her starting time, the penalty for failure to tee off on time is two strokes at the first hole in stroke play. If the person arrives after five minutes of tee time, the penalty is disqualification.

Here’s a golf dream I had last week:

I don’t know what tournament it was, but my caddy was Cliff. He’s a friend who used to caddy for me occasionally in Florida, especially in Miami on the Senior Tour. In this dream, Cliff committed a serious error in caddying on the Tour by not staying with his player when we arrive at the first tee. Plus, I arrived a few seconds late. Thus, I had to take a two stroke penalty and I haven’t even hit a ball yet.

Cliff then walked down the first fairway carrying my golf bag to forecaddie. Yet he forgot to give me my driver and a ball. Tour caddies must always stay with their players on all tees. The reason Cliff did this is that in amateur golf caddying, thus not in a big-time PGA Tour tournament, caddies sometimes will give their player the club (and ball) at the tee and go forecaddie. But on the pro Tour, the tournament sponsor has hundreds of volunteers as crowd marshals, etc., and they serve as ball spotters as well.

It’s my turn to hit my first shot of the tournament since this is the first day of the play. And I’ve got no club and no ball. So, I yell, “Cliff, get back here.” No Cliff. Then I get the gallery to yell it. But still, no Cliff. We don’t see him. He’s nowhere to be found.

So, I ask one of the pros for an extra ball. He says, “Fugetaboutit.” Nice guy! Then I ask Bob Gilder and he says, “I don’t have one.” A marshal on the tee says to me, “I’ve got an extra ball hidden over here in the bottom of this trash can.” We go empty the can and retrieve the ball. But it’s smaller than a normal golf ball. Worst of all, its not round at all. And its a colored ball, with one side colored grey and the other side colored red. I don’t know where the guy got that thing. He must be an alien.

But I’ve still have no golf club. I then notice that a 2×4 plank that is a part of the wooden bench beside the tee box has a loose nail. I grab that plank and rip it off the bench to use it as a club.

I then try to tee the ball up. But it keeps falling off the tee because it isn’t round. Finally, I get it teed up. I take a swat at the ball with the 2×4 and knock the ball about fifty yards forward. But it wedged against a tree. So, I had to declare it an unplayable lie and drop the ball for a one stroke penalty. I’ve hit only one shot, yet I have four strokes.

Finally, Cliff arrives, toting the bag. I chew him out for leaving me stranded. He doesn’t like that. So he says, “Well, you’re not the easiest pro in the world to caddy for, you know.” I reply sarcastically, “Oh, tell me about it. How so?” He responds, “You play golf like a Moon Man!” I roll me eyes.

I then hit my second shot to lie five. As we start to walk down the fairway, a stretch limo pulls up alongside me and stops. Four dudes dressed in zuitsuits and wearing sunglasses get out and stand there. They look like the FBI or maybe the Mafia. One commands me, “Get in the car.” I reason that some PGA Tour official has sent them to help me get to my ball fast since we are now on the clock for slow play. That’s a real bugaboo on the PGA Tour. You can get fined or worse–penalized one or two strokes.

Cliff and I get in the limo. But the driver starts driving off the golf course instead of to my ball. I say to him, “Heh, dude, where are you taking me?” He says, “to the airport.” I say, “What for?” The head guy in a zuitsuit says, “You might as well go on to the next tournament for next week since you’ve had such a crappy start here.” THE END.