Stray Thoughts: 4/6-7/2017
I started writing
this out on 4/6.
Watching the first
day of the Masters with Scott Van Pelt and Curtis Strange reminds me of the time
a group of my friends and I in a way crossed paths with Strange at the GGO in Greensboro.
This goes back to
91, or 92, 93 at the latest, but a group of us headed down to Greensboro to the tournament. I’m fairly
certain it was a Friday and the first
stop was a grocery store for a couple of cases of beer. As you know some handle
alcohol better than others. Well, about four to five to some is like a twelve
pack to others, so before we were even out of the van things were getting loud.
We get there and
Then the day got in the way
Picked it back up
on 4/7.
We get there and
the first thing Andy(using YD&B
names again) does is nearly get in a fight with some guy waiting in line at the
porta-Jons. He had to go and jumped in line. At that point I slipped my watch
off and put it in my pocket because with the way his drunk was acting you had
to be on “alert”.
Seth and Jesse were
over there talking to the guy that Andy pissed off, now whether they were
trying to calm things down or stir it up even more who really knows. Kelly and I walked over to one of the food
tents grabbing a BBQ sandwich and a Pepsi to wash it down. Andy exits the porta-Jon and Seth sneaks in
saying “suckers”. Andy walked over to the food tent and got a box for
his food. I guess he was hungry. He had a little bit of everything in there.
We walked around
various spots, and there is usually two ways to approach a golf tournament. You
either follow a group around the course, or you stake out a spot and watch
everyone come through. The first half of the day we followed big hitter John
Daly around the course then in the afternoon we set up off to the right of a
hole right below the green. The bigger hitters could find their approach shot
on the green, the rest anywhere from 5-50 yards shy so we got to see a lot of
players chip on to the green.
Andy was worn out
and ready to go. He wanted a nap. He started off going down to one knee. Then
he sat down with his legs out and then he quite simply laid back. Before you
knew it he was snoring. Passed the fuck out on hole whatever at the GGO. If it
were televised(no clue about that), I’m sure the commentators would have had
some fun with him.
Curtis Strange
approaches his ball, he’s trying to chip it up on to the green and he looks
over at us. He backs off the ball and shakes his head. His caddy comes up to
see if he needed a different club. He points over towards us, well Andy, and
he’s laughing with his caddy. He
approaches the ball again, he goes through the motions, looks up again over in
our direction and laughs again, shakes his head and backs off. This time a PGA official with his group walks
up and Strange points again and the guy radio’s in to someone else. Strange goes back to the ball, lines up, hits
it, it makes the green, and as he walks towards the green he yells over.
“Drink another one!”.
A few minutes
later, security rides up on a golf-cart and tells us that our friend needs to
stand up. One of us said, “you wake his fat ass up.” Seth walks over
and starts nudging him in the arm with his foot. "Wake up" he says. Kelly says
“get up fat ass”. He finally starts to move and gets up all in a panic, “what’s wrong? what’s
going on?”. We tell him that he passed out and that Curtis Strange laughed his ass off at
him, and this security guard says you need to stand up.
We watch for a
little while longer, and finally decide we’ve had enough. We are on our way out
when Andy jumps in line at the porta-Jon again, this time telling the guy he
passed that he either goes first or he pisses right there. The guy said “go ahead buddy”. Seth
is trying to talk Jesse into knocking it over, but Kelly and I looked at them
and said “are you that stupid?”
“While it would be funny as hell he has to ride home with us,
nobody wants that.” They agreed and we left.
Andy was catching
his second wind a nap will do that for you. He then bellows out, “Take me
to a titty bar.” Someone tells him
it’s 4 or 5 o’clock ( I put my watch back on) and again he demands “Take me to a titty
bar.” Then he remembers that some
topless establishment in Greensboro
has started a topless carwash, the problem was he didn’t know which one. So
down comes the window at the traffic light. The lady in the blue Volvo didn’t
know where the “topless car wash” was. So he orders Kelly to pull
into a gas station. He comes out with
directions and we are on our way to a topless car wash.
They had a little
league style bench set up with your car right in front of it with 2-3 strippers
washing the car while music blared out of some over-worked speakers. It was 20-25 dollars plus tips and Andy put
it on his grandfather’s credit card and after about 30 minutes we finally left.
We had to stop again at a gas station so Kelly could clean the
windshield(imagine that).
We get back on I-40
and head towards Winston-Salem
and Andy wants to stop and eat. “I’m Buying”, Seth says, “don’t
you mean Jackson
is buying”, “I’m buying everybody’s meal & drinks but
yours.” We pull into a Sagebrush and ate well. A $350.00 bar/meal tab
later (Seth’s included) we climb back in the mini-van and head for home. 10
minutes after being back on the road Andy is snoring again.
After using my
friend Goo-gle, she’s still French, it seems the bar/carwash is still in
business and even found a New
York Times article about it, it seems the guy wanted the space to make
money during the day, smart guy.
Seeing Curtis
Strange on TV reminded me of this story, so I thought I would share it. I’m
sure he’s seen many a drunk fucker on a golf course, but I do wonder if this
story would even register with him today.
Thoughts That Stray 