As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a golfer. To me, being a golfer was better than being Antonio Banderas. Even before I first wandered onto the driving range for an after-school job, I knew I wanted to be a part of them. They didn’t talk like anyone else. They said things like “mulligan” and “duck hook” and it wasn’t long before I was following suit: “I was in an iffy lie fifty feet from the cup and I played a bump and run with my sandy and jarred it to save snowman!”
I came home one day wearing Footjoy golf shoes, Callaway golf pants, a Polo, and a TaylorMade cap. “Whattaya think?” I asked my mom and she gasped. “My God! You look like a golfer!” But she didn’t understand how cool it was to be a linksman at 16. Even though I sucked at golf, it meant I was somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies. One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my clubs from my car to the front door. You know why? It was out of respect.
That was twenty years ago and my game is still miedra. I get to play the rest of my days like a duffer, but at least I can drink now. I think every round I’ve played since I turned 21 has been nothing more than an excuse to pound chelas with my compadres Javi, Felipe, and Diego. What’s that old saying? “It’s no accident that par and tee spell PARTEE!” That was us: bro golfers. And we always called ourselves Goodgolfers. You’d say to somebody: You’re gonna like this guy. He’s all right. He’s a Goodgolfer. But “good” just meant “friend,” and after our last round, I’m not even sure we’re that anymore.
The course was Tres Lagos Country Club, a beautiful course known for its deep-blue lakes, which are really just retention ponds. We bought forty beers in the clubhouse and loaded them into our carts before heading out for what we assumed would be another glorious day on the links.
Hole 1
Par 4 – 370 Yards
The starting hole is a stunner at TLCC and right off the tee, you’re face-to-face with Lago Uno, the first of the course’s three water hazards. A 200 yard drive was required to carry the water from the blue tees and everyone cleared it except me. I skulled it right into the drink and ended up with a double-bogey.
Hole 2
Par 4 – 418 Yards
It was only 9:15 am and I was already two beers in and two strokes over. I hoseled my next ball off the tee but my second stroke was the shot of the day. I flushed it two feet from the cup and ended up with a par, thanks to a charitable gimme. Javi was my cart mate and we drank two beers to celebrate. It was all downhill from there…
Hole 3
Par 4 – 273 Yards
… literally. Hole 3 had a lofty tee with a dramatic downhill fairway that made an abrupt uphill turn back up to the carpet. The fairway sprinklers had been on but stopped after we all teed off. I started down the cart path but Diego cut across the wet grass and his cart started spinning out of control. Felipe thought the cart might flip so he jumped out and barrel-rolled for like 20 yards. When he got to the bottom of the hill, he was covered with grass stains and muddy skid marks.
Hole 4
Par 3 – 169 Yards
The Course Marshal showed up at the tee box and told us we were ten minutes behind pace. We gave him a beer and he immediately went from course cop to course caddy. “Club up here because the slope behind this green corrects a long shot and rolls it back to the pin.” None of us came close to the green and he drove off laughing.
Hole 5
Par 5 – 505 Yards
It was the first Par 5 so we all came out swinging for the fences. Poor results ensued but Diego’s ball took the cake. He almost hit himself in the head with his own drive because his ball was teed up so high that he swung under it and caused it to pop straight up into the air like 10 feet. His tee went 15 yards but the “flop drive” had so much backspin that when it landed it spun back almost ten feet. Total drive distance was about negative three yards.
Hole 6
Par 4 – 427 Yards
Diego continued his shenanigans. He was already so buzzed on the 6th that when he shanked his drive toward some scattering golfers in the adjacent fairway, he yelled “Par!” instead of “Fore!” It was the only time he would say “par” all day.
Hole 7
Par 3 – 206 Yards
Hole 7 was a long, challenging par 3 with a generous target and a creek surrounding the front of the dance floor. Felipe hit a worm-burner with his 5 wood that somehow bounced over the creek and came within six inches of the hole. Javi missed left, I had a fried egg sizzling in the back bunker, and Diego’s ball fell short of the creek. Felipe was so excited to retrieve his ball that he forgot Diego was hitting his second shot. He bent over to mark his ball on the green and that’s when Diego bladed his shot and drilled the top of Felipe’s skull, causing him to drop like a sack of range balls. Felipe’s bell was sufficiently rung but he was fine and treated the bump on his head with an ice cold bottle of beer until the swelling went down.
Hole 8
Par 4 – 416 Yards
We were all approximately ten beers deep and running low. There was no sign of the Cart Girl so like a bunch of drunks we called the clubhouse and asked if they would deliver more but they said no. We were making the turn in two holes where we could reload on suds but the fear of running out for even five minutes before then was such a looming distraction that I think it compromised our ability to relax and focus on the game.
Hole 9
Par 5 – 558 Yards
I sliced my drive so badly I lost sight of it.
“Eyes?” I asked.
“Right, two-ten,” said Javi.
“Two-ten yards?”
“Two-Ten freeway.”
I don’t believe in mulligans (because I’m such an amazing pro golfer) so I relaunched and my second drive-slash-third shot hit a house and shattered some ceramic roof tiles. When we got to the house, the owner had a scowl on his face and broken tiles in his hand. I had to give him $50 to wipe that scowl off his face.
“Who the hell chooses ceramic roof tiles for a house on a golf course?” I asked him and he said, “Shrink the game.”
The Turn
We loaded up on beers because we still hadn’t seen the Cart Girl. We bought so many beers you’d think we were throwing a Super Bowl party on the 10th hole.
Hole 10
Par 4 – 336 Yards
The back nine started like the front. This time it was Lago Dos that faced the tee and you had to drive it 220 yards to carry the water but less than 275 to land short of the fairway bunkers. I hit it thin and topped it into the water with a mighty splash, and of course the Cart Girl was suddenly there to witness it. We had plenty of beers but she was such a bombshell we bought more, along with a round of Bloody Marys. We over-tipped her thinking that she would quit her job and run away with one of us but she drove off laughing.
Hole 11
Par 4 – 406 Yards
Felipe walked to his ball ahead of Diego. Diego addressed his ball and hollered “Heads up!” but Felipe didn’t hear him. Diego gave a shrug and when he let ‘er rip, he chili-dipped his ball right into Felipe’s back with a resounding thunk! It left a ring-shaped bruise in his lower back like a tramp stamp and you could see the golf ball dimples in the middle of what we ended up calling The Purple Donut.
Hole 12
Par 5 – 501 Yards
The Course Marshal returned and grabbed a beer without asking. Apparently he enjoyed caddying for beers. “You gotta carry that fairway bunker 225 yards off the tee if you wanna shave that dogleg!” he yelled. Then he started talking shit. “The second bunker is 300 yards out but you hacks don’t have to worry about that.” He was right: none of our shitty drives came remotely close to the vicinity of that second bunker, or even the first, and he drove off laughing again. Diego spit and committed another slip of the tongue: “Fuck that court-martial.”
Hole 13
Par 3 – 156 Yards
The Cart Girl showed up three holes later for more drunk-guy tips. We ogled her insane body as she reached into the beverage compartment to pull out a fresh round of brewskies. Javi asked her if she was a dancer and she told us she was a former gymnast. He offered her 20 bucks to do a “gymnastic move” and she took his money without even thinking. She got up to the tee box and raised her arms in that ready-pose that gymnasts do, then executed some crazy-ass cartwheel somersault move. She probably would’ve nailed the landing if it wasn’t for that damn tee box marker that nearly broke her ankle.
She was in tears when Javi picked her up, put her in the beverage cart, and promptly drove her back to the clubhouse like her knight in shining Under Armour.
Hole 14
Par 4 – 350 Yards
We carried on with a dogleg left, and of course I went right, slicing into the rough separating us from the adjacent hole. When I got to my lie, a walker from the other hole approached his ball, which he had sliced onto our fairway. I offered to let him hit but he insisted I go first. There was a tree between me and the green and he agreed to hide behind it as I prepared to hack out of the cabbage. The guy propped up his stand bag and stood behind the tree and I overswang and drilled a line drive that hit the guy’s bag and ricocheted behind the tree and into his face. When the guy emerged, his sunglasses and visor were all crooked from the blow. I apologized but Diego kept yelling, “That’s why you don’t walk!”
Hole 15
Par 5 – 526 Yards
Javi showed up mid-hole with a groundskeeper named Onofre and told us he was driving the Cart Girl to Urgent Care. I think we were just jealous that he was choosing to abandon us for a perfect ten in her early twenties but we started chastising him. He got defensive and somewhat agitated and that upset us even more. We became a foursome of yelling and shoving and eventually Javi just grabbed his clubs and drove off with Onofre.
Hole 16
Par 3 – 145 Yards
And then there were three… morons with three holes to go at Three Lakes, and suddenly I fell victim to a Code 3 stomach ache. There wasn’t a bathroom in sight so I snuck off into a dense thicket and unleashed my horror on the environmentally protected area. I wiped with my Cobra golf towel and tossed it into the bushes.
Hole 17
Par 4 – 340 Yards
Turnabout was fair play on 17. Diego was behind the cart peeing when Felipe accidentally punched it in reverse and ran over Diego’s foot, causing him to piss all over himself. Felipe fell out of the cart laughing and Diego was so livid he screamed, “Fuck this! I’m going home!” He dumped Felipe’s clubs onto the fairway and drove off in a drunken rage.
Hole 18
Par 4 – 367 Yards
And then there were two knuckleheads. Lago Tres on 18 was not as much of a hazard as her evil sisters on the other holes; she stretched along the left side of a dog-leg right. I had been slicing all day so as long as I played it straight or right, I’d be as dry as a popcorn fart. I whacked my ball and hooked it dead into the fuckin’ lake. “Tres por tres at Tres Lagos!” laughed the Course Marshal as he drove by and I flipped him the bird, which was the only birdie we saw all day. That creeper must have been watching us the whole round because along with his knowing comment, I also thought I saw my soiled Cobra towel dangling from the back of his cart.
The Nineteenth Hole – 21,000 Square Feet
After a long day of golf, we finally arrived at the best hole on the golf course: a long stretch with plenty of room right-to-left. The smart play was to lay up and take a four-beer approach; play it safe, no hard liquor. Our first beer was right down the middle but we left our second beer short and ordered two tequila shots. The third beer was an aggressive approach to the target and we went OB and had to take a penalty: the bartender cut us off and we had to pick up. That asshole Felipe went to pee and never came back so I got stuck with the check. Honestly, with friends like that, who needs golf?