Golarz: The vile 16th: Live by your moral and ethical standards on and off the golf course
The 16th hole was a beautiful par three over a pond with tall weeds and cattails around its shores. Golfers completing the 15th hole would leave their caddies, take their club of choice and walk the 60 yards to the 16th tee. Sixteen was 120 yards long and the green gently slopped toward its back. Many balls fell victim to that slope.
When I was 12 and my brother Joe 10, some young male members of the country club had hired a stripper. The girl, standing on the 16th tee, would expose her breasts or raise her skirt as golfers would try to drive from that tee. Joe’s golfer decided to have some fun with a young caddy.
From the 16th tee he yelled to Joe to bring him another club. I yelled back as I grabbed the back of Joe’s shirt.
“I’ll bring it,” he replied.
“I said the little guy.”
I yelled back, “He ain’t com’in’.”
The tee, filled with golfers, got silent as he screamed, “Send him here.”
I screamed back. “Kiss my a**.” I then grabbed Joe and left the course.
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The next day, the president of the Country Club Board called Joe and me to the clubhouse. He admonished us and told us we should never again swear or curse at a golfer.
Two weeks later on Tuesday, the women’s golf day, I was caddying for Mrs. Crenshaw. She apparently had asked for me. At the end of the golf game as we left the 18th green and were walking toward the clubhouse she asked, “Are you the young man who objected to having your little brother go to the vile 16th tee?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Well, I’m Mrs. Crenshaw, president of the club’s Women’s Auxiliary. The young men who initiated that immoral incident on 16 are no longer members of this country club. They clearly didn’t understand our ethical standards and who runs this establishment. You may share that with your fellow caddies.” She then looked down at me, smiled and from her flowered change purse handed me an unexpected $10 tip.
I loved that 18th green, not because of the $10 tip, but because in later years, as Joe and I were finishing the last round we would ever play on that course, his smile radiated as he lined up his last putt. I believe it was his warm smile that keeps that memory so alive.
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We grew up on that country club golf course. I think we grew up in a good way. I believe that the lesson we best learned as we played with poor, but honest, fellow caddies and ethical country club members like Mrs. Crenshaw, was to never violate the rules.
For a score to be treasured at the end of 18 holes you need to know that for all of those holes you never transgressed, you never cheated yourself. And your score in life, like the score on the golf course is laudable only because you worked at following the rules — all of the rules. Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon) demonstrated this in the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance when he called a stroke on himself because he unintentionally violated a rule by causing his ball to slightly move.
He said, “The ball was here and it rolled to here.”
His young caddy objected, “Only you and me seen it. No one will know.”
Then Rannulph replied, “I will know Hardy, and so will you.”
Maybe life is best lived when simply played like an honest and ethical game of golf.
Just maybe.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist draw parallels between honest golf and an honest life
