The Dawn Patrol Cometh-The Trials And Tribulations Of Sand-Bagger Johnson-Part Six

Sand-Bagger Johnson was sky-high as his usual foursome of Lucky Pierre, Zowy (formerly known as plain old ordinary vanilla Zow but from here on in with some literary license an added “y” to spice up his name as this series develops), and Casey headed for the first time this golf season into their normal dawn patrol first out tee-time spot as the storied Pine Pond course was begging to see the light of day. That first out position was not the reason, or not the big reason, that he was sky-high but rather that this round, this nine holes, would be a final tune-up for the opening tournament of the season, the prestigious Road Run Tourney. All of the foursome except the lanky Casey who against all reason had decided that running through the highways and by-ways of the fairly liberal city of Cambridge in his underwear or whatever those misbegotten “share the road with a runner” fanatics were wearing these days was more important than showing his manly links prowess in the tournament. A tournament where the club professional picked the two-person best-ball teams rather than the normal golfer-picked team selection which might have scared him off.         

Sand-Bagger sensed that Zowy and Pierre were sky-high too as he took a tee out of his windbreaker pocket to determine who would make up the day’s best-ball match play teams. (We can drop the Lucky part now that we know that any earnings by Pierre would hinge on luck and not that manly prowess previously mentioned.) This day the ancient tee flip custom would give Sand-Bagger Zowy as his partner and he smiled to himself that Pierre and the hapless Casey might as well fork out their Abes now and be done with it. They had already beaten this pairing earlier in the pre-season and today would be no different as he prepared to tee up his golf ball into the barely seeable first fairway. (Abe by the way meaning righteous Father Abraham, you know Lincoln who brought us through the Civil War and got himself minted on a five dollar bill for his efforts).

And strangely enough old Sand-Bagger had been right. Well almost right except Pierre had his irons on fire and Casey avoided his usual quota of triple bogies (three over par on a hole, okay). A quick recap-first hole halved after the putter twisted or something out of Sand-Bagger hand preventing a well-deserved win. Second and third hole to Pierre-Casey (hereafter P-C) two up Sand-Bagger thinking  Zowy and he had them right where they wanted them. Fourth hole halved when Casey booted one-P-C-still two up. Sand-Bagger reached deeply within himself to win five with a par and he could sense they would now come roaring back-P-C one up. Six hole halved after Zowy, looking at the hole from both sides now, drained one to tie the lucky stiff Casey who clicked in a simple no big deal two-footer. One up-Pierre had a great iron shot on seven parred and won after Sand-Bagger booted the ball all over the place and Zowy didn’t look at his par putt from both sides. P-C two up- Eighth hole lucky stiff Casey drained one for a par after Sand-Bagger had done the same- Match P-C.

Matches come and go here is the real deal. Sand-Bagger called a “press,” that means in simple terms that the ninth hole would be a separate match. The beauty of the press is that if the match winners don’t take the press then that is considered a loss-bang even. See golf guys are pretty smart when you think about it. A par by Sand-Bagger matched by Pierre gave each team a “push” (meaning no dough on either side). The important thing though was that S-Z stopped the bleeding always a good thing to leave the course with in preparation for future battles.

The inevitable Casey summary-An Abe apiece for Pierre and Casey. Abe by the way meaning righteous Father Abraham, you know Lincoln who brought us through the Civil War and got himself minted on a five dollar bill for his efforts. Did I already say that?