nobody's mistaking it for Hollywood
Well, after the very cool member/guest tournament and the draft (and the fact that I haven't blogged since Wednesday), I have all kinds of ideas for things to talk about.
First let me say the tournament thing was fun. We didn't play particularly well, and if we would have played just a little bit better, we could have won the thing (or at least our group in the thing), but oh well. I got some pretty neat stuff out of it...a windbreaker (short sleeved though. what's up with that?), a hat, an umbrella and a money clip (which would be cooler if I had stuff to put in it, and cooler still if it came with stuff to put in it).
We had one match against someone being an asshole. I used to like the guy. We've been out to dinner with him and his wife. They've been at our house and we at theirs. I've blogged about him before. He was the guy in January who made me uncomfortable about the whole subject of gambling on golf. He plays every week now and has gotten pretty good, and it seems to have turned him into a different, very smug person. We met him, and his brother (who was his partner) on the first hole we were to play, and immediately his attitude was condescending. My partner wore the same colored shirt as the staff at the course, so his comment was something like, "After we take you for a few holes in this match, you can clean my clubs." Now, if this was Hollywood, we'd be the Bad News Bears and come back from nowhere to kick his ass, but it's not Hollywood. I let the asshole and his cracks during the match get to me, and played badly...and we lost by two strokes. The world wasn't over though. There were four other matches to play and we had already won one of those. Going into the last match on the last day, the asshole and his brother were in second place in our group of six teams. They were down to another team by one point (or hole, for those of you who know what match play scoring is). The team that was leading was our opponent in that last match. We were in fourth place and thought ourselves pretty much out of contention. We were sooo tempted to just lay down and let them beat the crap out of us, just so the asshole couldn't win the thing, but that wouldn't be right. So we played...and played well. We were helped by the fact that the other team didn't play well, but they hadn't lost a match yet, and here we were beating them...and beating them badly. They were really nice people and despite the fact that we beat them by four holes in a nine hole match, we made friends. So we walked in, handed in the last of our scores only to find....because we beat them so bad, we were leading by one hole, but the asshole hadn't finished yet. If he came out even or worse in his last match, we would have won. If this was Hollywood, he would have spit his match and his jaw would have dropped when he saw that we won, but again, it's not Hollywood. He won by two holes and won our group in the thing. Afterwards, we were eating lunch with the two guys we just beat, talking about whatever and the asshole comes over to our table, looks at me and says something very close to (only because I can't remember the exact quote), "Thank you so much John, for beating the shit out of those two suckers. You're my hero!" It's been a long time since I've been that uncomfortable, and witness to such a complete lack of class. The "suckers" were sitting right there at the table, and really didn't need to hear that, in any way, shape or form, let alone like that. On top of that, there was the gambling issue. You could bet on your team if you wanted to, and most guys there did. We did not. The bet was $200 per team. I've mentioned before that I'm not much on gambling to start with, and not much on gambling on golf. If you saw my game, I think you'd agree that it's not something you put $200 on to win. Anyway, if we would have bet, we played well enough the last day that we would have made a fair amount of money. This doesn't faze me in the least. I'm just as much in favor of taking someone elses money as I am giving mine away. Well, the asshole made a huge deal out of that, and kept harping on it, to the point where my partner just looked at him and said, "Look, John already told you three times that we didn't bet on our team, and we really don't care that we would have won money. Drop it already."
No, it wasn't a Hollywood ending, which is a shame, because he was the only real downer in what was otherwise a very cool three days of golf and fun. If someone would have told me at the start that we would have come in second and that guy would have won, I'd have been O.K. with that. The fact that we came in second still is pretty cool, and the fact that he won isn't that big a deal. It's the way he won and how he acted that's still bothering me a bit....but I'll get over it, and I'll miss the guy the ashole was, before he became the asshole.
First let me say the tournament thing was fun. We didn't play particularly well, and if we would have played just a little bit better, we could have won the thing (or at least our group in the thing), but oh well. I got some pretty neat stuff out of it...a windbreaker (short sleeved though. what's up with that?), a hat, an umbrella and a money clip (which would be cooler if I had stuff to put in it, and cooler still if it came with stuff to put in it).
We had one match against someone being an asshole. I used to like the guy. We've been out to dinner with him and his wife. They've been at our house and we at theirs. I've blogged about him before. He was the guy in January who made me uncomfortable about the whole subject of gambling on golf. He plays every week now and has gotten pretty good, and it seems to have turned him into a different, very smug person. We met him, and his brother (who was his partner) on the first hole we were to play, and immediately his attitude was condescending. My partner wore the same colored shirt as the staff at the course, so his comment was something like, "After we take you for a few holes in this match, you can clean my clubs." Now, if this was Hollywood, we'd be the Bad News Bears and come back from nowhere to kick his ass, but it's not Hollywood. I let the asshole and his cracks during the match get to me, and played badly...and we lost by two strokes. The world wasn't over though. There were four other matches to play and we had already won one of those. Going into the last match on the last day, the asshole and his brother were in second place in our group of six teams. They were down to another team by one point (or hole, for those of you who know what match play scoring is). The team that was leading was our opponent in that last match. We were in fourth place and thought ourselves pretty much out of contention. We were sooo tempted to just lay down and let them beat the crap out of us, just so the asshole couldn't win the thing, but that wouldn't be right. So we played...and played well. We were helped by the fact that the other team didn't play well, but they hadn't lost a match yet, and here we were beating them...and beating them badly. They were really nice people and despite the fact that we beat them by four holes in a nine hole match, we made friends. So we walked in, handed in the last of our scores only to find....because we beat them so bad, we were leading by one hole, but the asshole hadn't finished yet. If he came out even or worse in his last match, we would have won. If this was Hollywood, he would have spit his match and his jaw would have dropped when he saw that we won, but again, it's not Hollywood. He won by two holes and won our group in the thing. Afterwards, we were eating lunch with the two guys we just beat, talking about whatever and the asshole comes over to our table, looks at me and says something very close to (only because I can't remember the exact quote), "Thank you so much John, for beating the shit out of those two suckers. You're my hero!" It's been a long time since I've been that uncomfortable, and witness to such a complete lack of class. The "suckers" were sitting right there at the table, and really didn't need to hear that, in any way, shape or form, let alone like that. On top of that, there was the gambling issue. You could bet on your team if you wanted to, and most guys there did. We did not. The bet was $200 per team. I've mentioned before that I'm not much on gambling to start with, and not much on gambling on golf. If you saw my game, I think you'd agree that it's not something you put $200 on to win. Anyway, if we would have bet, we played well enough the last day that we would have made a fair amount of money. This doesn't faze me in the least. I'm just as much in favor of taking someone elses money as I am giving mine away. Well, the asshole made a huge deal out of that, and kept harping on it, to the point where my partner just looked at him and said, "Look, John already told you three times that we didn't bet on our team, and we really don't care that we would have won money. Drop it already."
No, it wasn't a Hollywood ending, which is a shame, because he was the only real downer in what was otherwise a very cool three days of golf and fun. If someone would have told me at the start that we would have come in second and that guy would have won, I'd have been O.K. with that. The fact that we came in second still is pretty cool, and the fact that he won isn't that big a deal. It's the way he won and how he acted that's still bothering me a bit....but I'll get over it, and I'll miss the guy the ashole was, before he became the asshole.
John put this out here at 7:06 AM
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