Tuesday August 19^th, 2008 - The HGT-Ryder-Cup 1^st Round at Brooklake CC:

   As Paddy O’Jacobs, known within jurisprudence circles as the ’anging Attorney, was extricating himself from a downtown NYC courtroom, Team USA was busy doing what Americans love to do at the sound of a gong…indulge themselves in raw red meat, as they salivated in anticipation of demolishing the timid visiting Irish team which this year was representing the European Economic Community in the 2008 HGT-Ryder-Cup. Conversely, the Irish team was doing what the Irish do best for lunch…consuming their weight in Guinness.

   The regular season a distant memory – who remembers what happened yesterday let alone last week? – and the excitement of match-play amid a crowd of “U…S…A” chanting teenage girl onlookers at the club pool, Team-USA was resplendent in their new blue hats veritably foaming at the mouth (Chris Peter, our hostess, had to undergo a humiliating random drug test before even being allowed out on the course by the HGT Committee).

   Those who had to work would surely be missing not only wonderful weather but also a great day’s golf over the watery course of Brooklake Country Club…the place Chris calls home (even though he doesn’t have a key and has to knock to get in). Ralph Lombardi and Mark Ferry, both from Little Italy, rounded out today’s line-up for the men in blue. The all-Irish EEC Team lead by the Swede/Irish-naturalized Nikki Johannsson, included the Rastafarian Smokie Smith (according to his false passport, an un-naturalized northern Irishman), and the fair-skinned aforementioned Paddy O’Jacobs, were proudly wearing their overseas members’ hats from the K-Club, where the 36^th “real” Ryder Cup team outdrank the visiting new-worlders.

     One would have a federal case in claiming this Brooklake course is designed back to front, but then neither the tenth nor the first are ease-you-into-the-round holes as architects commonly create. And so, the three singles matches all had to hit cold a 200-yard shot into the wind over a lake to a raised green…sure! Being the member here, Chris was the only one who made a stellar par. In fact, the Chris-Ralph “team” turned their distinct advantage of member knowledge of the greens contours into numerous hole-saving putts – a feat repeated from 4-o’clock up until the final putt of the day.

   At the turn Mark led Rand by 1, and both Dave and Ralph had spotted Chris and Nikki 3 holes, with Nikki’s birdie on #4 , and Chris and Mark’s par on the toughest hole on the course being the front-side highlights. It was already looking as if the Chris-Dave match was the key to a lead for either team.

   Starting the backside, his white shoes still immaculately reflecting the sun into his opponent’s eyes, Chris deposited two of his range balls in the drink to Dave’s one. On the backside, Mark turned in two birdies as Nikki holed two monster putts from nowhere…the second of which closed out his match 4&3. Mark had Paddy begging for mercy on #16 and ended things 3&2. So the teams were tied up: USA 1 EEC 1. That left the Chris-Dave runaway train wreck match to be the decider.

   Chris had raked Dave over the coals for seven holes and stood 4-up. While Dave had been struggling with the concept of par, he managed to scratch and claw his way back to just 2-down after eleven (the police have photos of Chris’ face to prove the marks). Against the grain, Chris chipped dead from nowhere for par on #11 and a devastated Dave three-putted for the loss. Chris was back to 3-up and just seven to play. Now most golfers would cruise to victory in such a situation as 3-up with 7 to play, but Chris is an excitement junkie and Dave proved to be not in the mood to be the butt of HGT jokes. He went on a tear and won four in a row to go 1-up with three to play.

   Undaunted, Chris found the short-16^th green and his two-putts (one was a 6-foot gimmie) was enough to take down Dave’s wildly sliced tee shot. Ralph whispered on the 17^th tee that this was the deciding hole…and a chant of “U-S-A” struck up after Dave dunked his into the lake and was only able to loft his third over the water and scuttling through to the back fringe. Chris took extra club as he could taste victory. But his muscled 6-wood went long and found thick matted grass behind the green from where he clearly needed practice. Chris took two to get his ball on the green and from there they halved – had Chris blown Team-USA’s chance to lift the golden trophy?

   A feeling of impending doom descended like an iron curtain on Chris as he cussed his way to the 18^th tee. The quickly-thinning crowd was not surprised as he duck-hooked it into the left-side trees. Even with a good recovery second, Chris was too far away to get over the lake that protects the 18^th green. Dave, meanwhile, placed his tee shot in the fairway (is that allowed?) but pulled his second into the left rough from where he and Obergrupenfuhrer Nikki disagreed as to Dave’s ability to get over the water with his “recovery” wood from his deep lie in thick rough.

   Long story short, Dave mishit his third so badly that he didn’t even reach the hazard and was safe but still had a tricky 4^th from rough to a front pin-position. While Chris had laid up, the tension of this all-tied match made him loft his ladies’ iron to the back of the green and the dreaded 3-putt demon suddenly appeared by the green and seemed to be chuckling his approval. Dave managed to leave his 4^th 14’ from the pin but had a tricky cross-green right-to-left’er. Chris’ downhill into-the-wind putt came up woefully short leaving Dave the option of tootsie-lagging his putt to secure a sure-of-a-half bogey. “Would that be good enough?” came from the crowded media tent. “Who are these people?” chanted a group of Tibetan monks.

   This reporter is sure Team-USA’s captain Ralph was sorely wishing this was a four-some match on account of his putting was sound all day long (except when he was rattle by one of Nikki’s long “johns”). The stress in Chris’ face was discomforting. It was clear that no amount of putter length was going to get this ten-footer to drop, and sure enough his double-bogey dropped Team-USA into a valiant second place, and made Dave’s comeback the story of the century. “Never before in HGT-Ryder-Cup history has there been such a monumental collapse” – a headline that would push “Titanic Sinks” into the inside pages of the Dublin Cork Herald Examiner. This reporter has a feeling that Team-USA captain Ralph will be benching Chris for the rest of the play-off matches…and may even take up legal proceedings, for which, of course, Paddy O’Jacobs will be happy to offer his inestimable services.

   This has been another fantastic relaying of reality by Ciarran MacShortsight, cub reporter and superman sidekick, and you too may purchase it for syndication.

HGT-Ryder-Cup current standings: USA 1 : EEC 2

Thursday August 14^th, 2008 - The “Engraving” Tournament at Saint Andrew’s:

   The race for the final points of the HGT-Ryder-Cup qualifying and an HGT-Match-Play Championship semi-final was as white hot as the lightning that danced around the hills of The Saint Andrew’s Golf Club this afternoon. The small group of Dave Smith, Greg Framke and Nick Johnson were just beaten in their cross-Bronx dash to the safe harbor of this golf oasis behind the lock-down gates by Ralph Lombardi. Rand Jacobs, whose Irish heritage will play a big role next week, ran over the tournament organizer in his eagerness to get in to lunch and on out to play. Meanwhile Simon Oxley was on a bus tour of all five New York City boroughs before turning up with minutes before his official tee-time.

   The Fat Lady was elsewhere this sunny noon-time, given the 2008 new HGT Champion had already been effectively crowned, but these brave few players were keen to tack on valuable HGT-Ryder-Cup playoff points and jump over the unfortunate working stiffs. A couple of “Bye’s” in the knock-out Match Play Championship promoted Paddy O’Jacobs and Sir Simon Oxley, Earl of Upper Tadcaster, into the yet-to-be-played second semi-final, so these two gents would be extra busy this stormy afternoon playing two games simultaneously.

   Jockeying for first-tee rights Messrs Lombardi, Framke and Johnson teed off in the lead group. Calamity for the Tour! Two vicious left hooks OB put Don Lombardi behind the eight-ball with a figurative hill to climb. Monsieur Framke’s smooth par on #1 would later be surpassed only by The Right Honorable Mr. Smith’s par-par-par start – a feat he matched on the first three holes of the back-nine. These would prove to be telling accomplishments. But, as usual, I get ahead of myself.

   There are few “good golf” highlights – Ralph birdied #6 and #12 where Nick also made a birdie 4, and Greg bagged his bird on #17. But there were plenty of mishit shots left out there. Where should we start? Perhaps with Rand’s struggle to get three pars out of eighteen, or Greg’s near-dunk (of himself, not his ball) on the Loch Ness 6^th hole, a feat he would beat for its headline status on the 12^th where he cut two balls OB and one deep into the rainforest to leave him with a pair of uprights for his score – probably the reason he then relaxed and shot 1-over-par for the last six holes!

   This day would be renowned not just for Dave repeating as winner here in Hastings-On-Hudson, but mostly for the match-play between Rand O’Malley and Simon LeBon, Their close match was tied up after 15 holes and but for Rand’s 18^th hole bogey putt stopping on the edge they’d be all tied up and still playing extra holes. Simon’s win put him into the Match-Play Final and propelled him into 3^rd place overall, while Greg eased into 2^nd - both quite a distance behind Dave who held off all-comers again for the win two weeks in a row and the same tournament two years in a row.

   The “skill” prize for longest drive could not be awarded for the first time in HGT history due to the fact that no-one found the fairway on the long and toughest-on-the-course hole of #7. So the full two dozen premium balls (HGT X-outs) hung on the Nicklaus signature short sixteenth hole where the ridged green forced the closest-to-the-pin shot out to a disrespectful 23’ 4” on account of the wall-‘o-death hill that one’s green-hit tee-shot had to negotiate in order to surmount the sucker-pin back right shelf. Simon won plaudits from the also-rans with his inspiring generosity by handing a whole sleeve to each on the admiring crowd of fellow-contenders…what a guy!!

   As the din of the stroke-play season (that may be the Cross-Bronx Expressway rush-hour traffic) diminishes, and the HGT group girds its loins for the match-play 3-event Play-Offs, this writer must bid adieu. He has been lured away by the filthy lucre of the International Herald Tribune & Post Intelligencer to rove and report on bigger fish. But your most humble reporter may be seen out of the corner of your eye behind the bushes next week at Brooklake, or in September at Somerset Hills and Canoe Brook. May the force be with you! This tour is pure amateur fun. We will look back and remember these as stand-out days of our lives.

Thursday August 7^th, 2008 - The “Old Man of Golf” Tournament at White Beeches:

Is it déjà-vu or anterograde amnesia? The tournament seems a blur already. Were the gin-tent drinks spiked? The scores are too close to call. It could be ecstasy or perhaps paranoia. This doddery old reporter must put pen to paper to unscramble his “Memento” from the “Reservoir”…

This is a complicated report to telegraph in as the returned scores (not including Wie’s who had left the official HGT scorers tent without signing her card) from this Walter Travis track, originally called Haworth Country Club, are so similar. Just four strokes separate the five illegitimate competitors.

A la “Memento”, we shall determine the winner by starting at the critical eighteenth, where every player could have won and all but one lost, and working backwards through the round to see where the characteristic swings took place and players become clear. What you will see, dear reader is that the first tee predestined the true identity of the champion as well as revealed the also-ran usual suspects.

There are obvious and subtle clues. This reporter shall take upon his hunched shoulders the ancient cloak of Sherlock Holmes, don his deerstalker, assume the magnifying glass position and examine the minutiae. As I pore over at the Polaroid’s in my dingy motel room just off the Jersey Turnpike, the rattle and hum of the tournament a distant memory from earlier in the day, I examine the physical evidence. At this point, I shall call the golfers Mr.White (the Harvey Keitel organizer), Mr.Orange (the suspicious Tim Roth), Mr.Blonde (the enforcer Michael Madsen), Mr.Pink (the bug-eyed Steve Buscemi), and Mr.Brown (the high-IQ Quentin Tarantino).

Upon closer magnification of the pictures I am startled to now see tattoos on each man’s arm that must earlier have been covered by sun block. This poor-man’s art must surely be the roadmap that leads me to the identity of the earlier-today’s winner and thus determine who got away with what. The last permanent memory was seeing five players on the eighteenth tee – just how I got from the liquor-laden table to this flea-bed room will for ever be shrouded in the mists of alcoholism. Each one had a chance to win the trophy standing on the eighteenth tee. It was just how they played that treacherous final 208-yard 3-par hole that made one and broke the rest.

The numbers show there were no pars. Bogey was the best, by Mr.White and Mr. Blonde. Mr.Brown and M.Orange made double, and Mr.Pink made quadruple (he must have made the “Giunta” mistake of trying to ricochet a 5-wood of the house that stand sentry behind the green). There were four strokes difference between front-runner Mr.Brown and bask-seat driver Mr.Blonde. To win, and given the general amnesia of this group, no-one knew this fact, Mr Blonde and White needed hole-in-one to win, while Mr.Pink and Brown needed just par, if Mr.Orange merely bogeyed (which of course he did). And since the hole had a cross wind, a pond in front, bunkers left and right, a hazard running the complete right side of the hole and OB behind it, there was more than sufficient danger to tighten everyone’s small, large and sphincter muscles into a Gordian knot.

Come with me, my unsuspecting somnambulant, as I skim back in time over the rolling fairways and undulating greens to examine the road less travelled through this Travis course on this day. What challenges were met with fortitude? Which successful strokes did the players accidentally suffer on each one’s pre-destined road to that fateful 18^th tee on this lucky-in-Ireland day of 8.7.08. Mr.Pink’s card vshows a 4-hole stretch of pars that was helping him catch Mr.Orange – however, Mr.Pink had made numerous swings under the left-side evergreens of the 11^th, some of which even made contact with his ball. Mr.Blonde, it is recorded, was very steady through all seventeen of his prior holes but then he had the burden of fewest strokes to get off his gross. Mr.White, meanwhile, couldn’t make a putt, but his organizational skills were pār-éxcéllènçe (as the grammatically-inaccurate French like to say).

Mr.Brown missed putts coming down the stretch with 17 his nemesis, where he five-putted, as was seen trying to surgically implant a long putter. Before this tragedy, Mr.Brown was actually in the lead. Mr.Orange managed to keep double off his card on the back nine, though he had doubled the first…as did Mr.Pink. But Mr.Pink had also strung three pars together in the middle of the front nine, after doubling #3, which was after a great birdie on #2, which was after a horrendous opening hole on which he went swimming.

And so I’ve worked our way back to the group picture on the first tee. You can’t see the tattoos because of the contre-jour photograph (not to mention the photographer shot some other group), and so I had to pull out the clubhouse closed-circuit camera video in order to discover the identities of our nefarious suspects. As I zoom in on our players loading their bags onto the carts, even though they are hats pulled down and backsides heaven-wards, from the bag-tags I could see Mr.Pink picked up Simon Oxley’s, Mr.Blonde got Jim Lamb’s, Mr.White got Nick Johnson’s, Mr.Brown lifted Chris Peter’s, and I can therefore say “Elementary, Mr.Watson”, now I have eliminated all the possibilities, all that can remain is the truth: the winner, even though he doubled 18, was Mr.Orange, and it was Dave Smith who the videotape clearly shows picked up Mr.Orange’s bag.

A two-peat, year-to-year. Only last August, Mr.Orange won with a urology problem, and this year it was pink eye (strange, I wonder if Mr.Pink has it too?). His first place finish will be the perfect salve. Now the picture is clear, I can add that there was much skill on display this day (though no official “skill” prize due to financial shenanigans). With play off the back tees at 6,501 yards and no sand in the bunkers, only Simon “Mr.Pink” made one birdie on this laid-out-before-you Travis course – the routing, the greenside bunkering, and the substantial contours of the slow greens.

The members here at the White Beeches club like their grass to be lush. Dave “Mr.Orange” shot net-74 for first place last year. This year that would have left him in last place! The HGT is definitely toughening up its players. And so, Mr.Orange picks up pin-money in the closing race for the Fed-Up Cup (the HGT claret jug and Scotland Trip Fund), but the winner will not be in doubt at next week’s Saint Andrew’s unless a player-to-be-named donates $400 to the prize money and then wins the final tournament. Chris “Mr.Brown” slumped to 2^nd, and the redoubtable Mr.White pipped Mr.Pink for 3^rd.

Next Thursday, this reporter will be hailing from Hastings-on-Hudson for the final regular season tournament where valuable Play-Off points are needed to set the final slots for the USA or Rest-of-World teams. “Yes, its exciting stuff”, as Henry Longhurst used to say. “Oh well…” (another of his bon mots) would also be applicable here. I do hope, my illustrious absorber-of-words, that you are still awake at this point in my diatribe. It is time for my memorable sign-off. Someone get the lights!

Thursday July 31^st 2008 - The “Willie’s” Tournament at Glen Ridge:

The HGT RV ran out of gas today opposite the white-washed colonials which line Ridgewood Avenue not far from #335, where on October 10, 1894, in a candle-lit annex, a small gathering around a parlor table signed their name to the founding charter of what became Glen Ridge Country Club. One would excuse the troubled HGT driver because of the price of gas these days, but the brightly-colored camper also failed to find a parking space on account of the gaggle of young tennis campers, and there was an incoming tide of swimming pool lubbers arriving to purloin the prize poolside positions.

The current clubhouse sits atop a hill that looks down over four verdant holes – #’s 1 & 10 going down, and #’s 9 & 18 coming up. In last year’s similarly hot atmosphere the HGT was sturdy enough to dine al fresco on the veranda. This year’s spineless fourball squeezed into the grill room bustling with morning golfers covering themselves in towels against the bite of the air-conditioning, and the happy few, like our gang, who sat on the edge of their seats, eagerly anticipating their afternoon’s adventure.

The reliable gang of four HGTers included Dave Smith, Ralph Lombardi, Rand Jacobs and Nick Johnson. They were the remnants of a 14-man roster that has been devastated by injury, vacationing families, and the volatile stock market. We were shoed up, notwithstanding the chock-full-o-nuts changing room guest lockers that were filled with more detritus than a homeless person owns, and showed up. Ralph selected an elegant new HGT shirt – who knows what happened to his last one, and this reporter was too afraid to ask – and opted for shorts this week (this reporter thinks he merely wishes to compete with Nick’s neon white legs). Nick was in salmon pink shorts offset with black with a bright red hat and looked not out of place among the Masters azaleas, while Dave was the white knight and Rand sported a Miami-Vice smokers’ corner number.

The group agreed to a winner-take-all first prize as this was the first time in HGT history that as few as only four had signed up for a tournament. With little skill in this group, the skill prize could easily be skipped this day, but Nick and Dave would also be marking their cards in match-play format owing to their being in the Semi-Final of the HGT-Match-Play Championship, so there was still plenty to be played for this afternoon. The subject of the Scotland Trip came up and Nick was on notice to get some dates together and issue an email to see who was thinking of going this upcoming October.

Conspiracy theories abounded at lunch – Ralph, it turns out, has personally piloted a UFO, and Rand is probably the only earthling who is untouched by visitors. Dave eschewed the airball practice range, choosing instead to skull a few from the practice sand trap towards the main clubhouse. Nick hacked his usual half dozed shanks before announcing he was ready for this week’s team photo. Ralph was chomping at the bit and was already teed up on the back-tips of the 1st before the HGT official press photographer had even oiled up his mechanisms.

With the maximum course yardage at a mere 6,123 yards (it is little changed from the one Willie Park Jr. designed back in 1913), it still offered four par-5’s with three of them protected from being reached in two by the Third River (to be renamed the Rand River). None of our four alert and high-IQ players noticed the course layout card in the cart windshields for the whole of the front nine…duh!

Off the first tee, all four drives were in good shape with Ralph almost driving the downhill green, and yet only Dave made par (and the 1-up lead against Nick). Rand bounced back with birdie on #2, an uphill bomb that shook the keening crowd, while Nick missed a knee-knocker downhill slider for bird. One quickly came to appreciate just how much water the staff at GRCC must lavish on their course what with spongy fairways and soft (not-overly-fast) greens (similar to last year), not to mention the lush verdant growth at the back of the 14^th tee.

Nick warned everyone about the river skulking in front of the 3^rd hole but Rand still hit into it (he did that again on the 6^th and the 14^th – just missing one of those three times and he would have walked away with this tournament!). The 3^rd was where the first of many strokes Dave was undeservedly receiving from the poor but low-handicap Nick this afternoon, and sure enough Dave’s par net-birdie won him the hole and a 2-up lead. This is the point in that match where Dave must have fallen asleep (though you couldn’t tell from his usual glazed look), because the match-play momentum made a subtle move. Rand and Nick both made par at the cross-water, downhill 3-par 4^th, and Ralph finally came alive with birdie on #5. With Dave running on empty over the last half of the front-nine, Nick turned his match-play fortunes around and came to the half-way house with a three-up lead on a gross 2-over-par (and prepared to pay $2.50 for a bottle of water…apparently it came with a part-ownership of the Third River it was drained from). Meanwhile Ralph took a shot from his hip-flask on 9-tee amid cries for blood and urine testing and boosted himself to the only par among the group on that tough into-the-wind uphill hole.

It could have been the grunting and giggling from a nearby female tennis foursome not fifty paces away, but this reporter swears Dave’s eyes were not on his ball when he swung his driver on the tenth tee, and if it wasn’t for his tee-shot hitting the cart path, he would not have achieved the all of the 43 yards that he managed from his “big-stick”. His six at the 10^th was the last straw (not to mention the gift-wrapped 4-up lead he’d given Nick), and there next came a change in Dave not unlike the unleashing of Frankenstein. He made par on the intimidating 193-yard 11^th (“from Hell” according to Ralph), from a place that had Nick prematurely counting a win on the hole, but no, when Dave sank his 50-footer it rattled the unflappable Nick and the momentum-tide changed. Dave birdied #12 and #15, and the end result could have been quite different had Nick not squeezed out his own birdie on #13.

Ralph was playing bogey golf, which is not bad considering he was up until 3am the previous night, and Rand was playing all the non-river holes well – he birdied #15 and made par at the tough eighteenth. Dave’s snowman on the stroke-hole 16^th proved to be the critical lapse in concentration that Nick was hoping for. Even though the referee was beginning the boxing count, dormie-2 down Dave however won the 17^th with a very nice up-and-down out of the deep front bunker, but the pivotal stroke was his injudicious third on the final stroke hole 18^th which landed his gutta-percha on the upper tier of four-tier green and with the pin just below one of several steep slopes, he had no chance of nestling his 4^th shot close, and when his come-backer shaved the right side of the hole, the fat lady behind the green immediately cleared her throat and belted out God Bless America. Turn the lights out, this one’s in the history books.

Nick carded a gross-78, net-69 for the win, which, given he won this tournament last year, makes him the one to beat in Glen Ridge. One shot behind with a net-70 (after a math re-count) was Rand Jacobs after whom the movie “A River Runs Through It” was named -- yes the Third River was Rand’s accursed undoing. Dave is still searching for last year’s form, but there were certainly signs of it on the back-nine when he racked up two birdies, and he again drove very well. Ralphie struggled due to a lack of sleep, but the upside is that he got an extra handicap stroke, so look out for him at Saint Andrew’s. Speaking of which, Rand also showed how, with a more judicious approach to water hazards, he too could net low.

The Glen Ridge Club has to be commended again on its hospitality – the people were commendably friendly, and we must thank them for permitting such a small group as ours out on their wonderful green course. This short track that Willie built is one we shall have to bring forward in our rotation next season.

The Tour RV juggernaut stops (so long as the worn out brakes cooperate) at White Beeches Golf & Country Club up in Bergen County next Thursday the 7^th for our penultimate visitation. Keep your game in front of the green as Walter Travis used to do with his hickory shafts and rely on your short game (if you have one). And if not, try the priesthood or giving up the game altogether. This report was filed under “Z” in the back of the cabinet, and with not a minute to spare before deadline. Good luck and goodnight.

Tuesday July 22^nd 2008 - The “Your Mother’s” Tournament at Morris County:

True to its name, there were mothers (and a seething mass of kids) everywhere again this year at hilly Morris County this 4^th Tuesday in July. Tennis, swimming and golf lessons were in mid session as the HGT straggled in after their two-week mid-summer hiatus. This is the “bowl” where George Washington slept near, marched over and fought against the blasted British, and it was again this today the sight of pugilism involving nine modern missles carrying names like Titleist, Nike and Callaway. The weather was hot and humid and the air was heavy as our quiet group went about the business of familiarizing themselves with the speed of the practice putting green, as well as taking the mere minutes necessary to loosen up golf muscles on the practice range.

The MCGC course rambles over hill and dale (or “dell” as Chris Peter likes to call the pits his ball came to rest in on many occasions this afternoon), with many acres to spare. It is a refreshing change to the tightly wedged-in suburban courses the HGT has been playing just to the East here-to-fore. Holes here are interspersed with wide swaths of wild fescue and darkened woodland. And with the MC Club championship already underway, the course was in excellent condition. Last year’s bad weather had forced the group into hoofing the course with caddies. This year weather on the opposite end of the spectrum forced the gang-of-nine to cart it – and given the undulations and elevation changes this course puts you through, everyone was grateful for the invention of the battery-driven Wankel engine.

The course that is Morris County today is a far cry from the one Seth Raynor designed. The HGT was to tee up on the new back-in-black tees again (given that eventually the course beat us up again, expect next year’s group to be off the forward tees!) facing greens that were cut and rolled tightly. Those, however, are not the critical obstacles facing players here…it’s in that there are no flat lies anywhere (especially the tee box at number 6, as well as most greens) that pushes ones score northwards here. At Morris County you have to putt well to score well.

When your troubled reporter arrived, ’07 champ Dave Smith was already beating balls on the range (strange he doesn’t seem to want to hit them with his clubs) even though he was fresh off a week of solid golf in the emerald isle of Ireland - he even river-danced back up to the clubhouse patio. Max Bergen arrived in a typical NYC car-owner’s voiture, but he looked spiffy in his fresh newly-ironed HGT-logo shirt.

There were several players with recently increased handicaps that would be looked upon as dark horses here today…Simon Oxley, invigorated after humbling The Belfry back in jolly old England; Ralph Lombardi speaking softly but carrying a big stick; and the HGT’s very own million-dollar-man Mark Ferry whose been travelling to Virginia these last few months having a new golf game surgically implanted. The Miami’s-Vice Chris Peter was only pretending to be interested in being on the practice range (that would explain his score later this day), while he secretly adjusted Nick Johnson’s clubs. And Rand Jacobs arrived in all-white to offset Scott Koppa’s all-black – it’s like commentating on a rugby match!

At lunch, Nick re-introduced the Old Tom Morris’ porridge spoon prize, this time for “double-pars” – little did he think just how many of them there would be this afternoon, as there turned out to be quite a fight for the honor of carding the highest and most “double-par” holes. This reporter is doubtful that the antique wood spoon prize will make it to the Glen Ridge tournament next week as it was embarrassingly difficult to award it fairly to any one player.

Once the patio lunch table had been picked clean, some of the more nervous players squeezed in some final practice putts as if the game they’d brought to the course might not be good enough. The starter was informed of the change of heart about walking vs riding even though this group could stand to lose a few pounds. The gaggle then tried to fit six carts into the 1-lane path that edges the first tee, and with the group shot flashed, the first of the “Tour” let fly over the cavernous bowl echoing in front of the 1^st tee. Ralph led the charge, as others narrowly missed the flagpole – Chris with his banana-hook drive actually bent his around the right side of it! Only the 1^st-threesome chose to employ a forecaddie (they thought helpful suggestions on the green such as “it’ll break one way or the other” would give them an edge!). Max and Rand followed up with drives vaguely off in the direction of the first flag, and the first group was on the course and the competition was on.

This reporter, who covers the HGT for the International Scottish & Windward Islands press agency, was surprised to see the hardened golf prowess of the second threesome. In this group, I feel compelled to bring to your attention the classic swing finish of the last event winner Nick (see photo above). Now that is something to emulate! Nick laced his drive to pitching-wedge range, went pin-hunting to 6 feet, but the tricky curl confused him and he settled for par. Last year’s MC Champ, Dave, hit his first drive the same as the seventeen that followed – straight and half-way. Chris meanwhile struggled to tame his hook all afternoon (as well as his back-seat passenger!).

The “C” Group of Mark, Scott and Simon all managed bogey-5 at the opener, and that was a good hole for them. There would be many shots between the trio before they collapsed into the halfway house for refreshers (that’s liquid, not golf lessons). Their best hole was for the skill-prize on the Long Drive #11 hole where Mark crushed his drive 265 yards into the strengthening wind (over the hopeful, johnny-come-lately Nick), while Scott parlayed his 11^th into a birdie on that away-sloping green…that was some good golf.

Max’s birdie at the second put him 1-under-par, and perhaps feeling that this would be his day. However, a double on the short #3 brought his lens back into focus. The third was also where Nick edged out Ralph for the Closest-To-the-Pin by a mere 3” (in some sports that kind of length matters). Max started his come-back with birdie on #6 (the same hole that won Simon the spoon prize). The riddle of the seventh hole was solved by only Dave and Ralph whose par scores were superior by far to the other duffers.

Ralph meanwhile made the turn at just 2 over par – excellent golf off the back tees. But even he stumbled on the #13 Redan hole where he made double-par. With a shot of medicine, he slammed the door shut on the rest of the players making just one more bogey over the five remaining holes for a gross 78, net-68 and first place. Several furlongs back, Nick limped in for second with an 81 net-72, then Rand with 93 net-77, and in 4^th place came Dave with a net-79.

There turned out to be ten double-pars, but as Simon alone accumulated three with one being double-plus-one, he was rightly awarded Old Tom Morris’ porridge spoon, which, on the basis of not being able to take it with him to Hong Kong, he dutifully returned it to the Committee’s safe-keeping.

The air-conditioned mixed bar the group fell upon for post-match celebrations caused several players to order girly drinks and thus lose their status on tour. Nick announced the October Scotland trip would now be relocating to KCMO to which players should bring brushes. The HGT spilled out into the parking lot and this reporter suspected few would make it to the short course Willie Park Jr. built in Glen Ridge. But that’s where the HGT nascar is headed and we’ll surely read about another bumper-derby next week.

Tuesday July 8th 2008 - The "British Open Qualifier" at Metuchen G&CC:

Little known on the international golf stage is this regional qualifier held this year on a hot day in July at Metuchen Golf & Country Club, ahead of “the show” next week at Royal Birkdale on the Costa-del-Sand links-land in the UK’s County of Lancashire. Thousands of wanna-bees had been whittled through rigorous competition (and, rumor has it, no small amount of baksheesh to “The Committee”) down to the magnificent seven who are as I speak descending upon this tiny Edison hamlet. The lucky number seven were to do battle for a final amateur spot next week at Southport on Merseyside. The ultimate prize being the famous claret jug trophy (which was on high-security display in the Metuchen men’s grill-room this day in hopes of inspiring the HGT – though it was looking a tad tarnished!).

“Who designed this course?” was one of the more sentient questions this heroic historic reporter was asked while hungrily tucking into his sirloin burger (and slice of Rand Jacobs’ pizza to boot) while seated in the picture-windowed clubhouse of Metuchen’s 19^th Hole, loftily looking down upon the short-18^th green. The sun was beating down on our pseudo-historian Nick Johnson, as the pearls of wisdom he dropped were picked up by the hungry crowd as if manna from heaven. “Gourleigh O’Laughlin” Nick authoritatively announced. “This is not one of those high-profile history clubs – the course has been fashioned over the years by its members and club pros with the loving care that comes only with pride of ownership” he added. This day we would see these fine HGT finalists pay heavy tribute to their true greens with 10’s on several scorecards.

Last year’s winner, Dave Smith, was keen to re-peat, and so he arrived at the crack of dawn, and was still fixing his putting stroke as Ralph Lombardi rumbled up in his RV. Soon the others found Nick – Mark Ferry along with his seeing-eye-dog (by the looks of his card, the dog must have played some of his holes for him!); Paul Partridge, who was eager to bait his Match-Play Championship opponent Rand into taking care of their business this day, even though The Committee frowned upon concurrent stroke and match play conduct except in emergency. Last to roll in was Bob Fazen and in that great car of his its no wonder he likes the limelight. And so the group was assembled, as if at the start of the Nome dog sled race – Ralph was even dressed in layers and long black pants, with today’s heat hitting the high-80’s not being as hot as his native equatorial homeland.

Lunch chit-chat topics included male incision in its early days (hit or miss surgery that involved a pair of scissors and coke-bottle glasses), the eagerly anticipated flooding of Green-Brook (consequent with the levee-remediation and land development in Bound Brook) and Dave’s upcoming trip to Ireland to play the famous(?) inland courses whose names no-one knew (he was warned against using Nick as a reference in Killarny on account of the “incident”). There was a tension within the clubhouse – the pro had warned Nick against his Izod short shorts, the manager had recently been released and the fill-in work pressure tension on the remaining staff was thick enough to cut with a butter knife. At least we still had “the girl going to school” in the halfway house to look forward to.

While the course has undergone some changes since last year…green-side tree and tee-box hedge removals on #6, and reed-growth around the tee on #13, the greens were as good as ever. Sure there are some steep ones (the false front on #1, the camber on #2, the slope on #8, 9, 10, 14, 16 and 17), but the grass quality was pure this day and the ball kept its line like a billiard ball on felt. The tee-boxes are something else – a half dozen still sitting in neighborhood kitchens.

The sun beat down on the seven full-figured golfers as the buzzards circled overhead awaiting the expected road-kill. This being an open qualifier, the stroke-play tournament was to be off the championship back-tees which stretch the course out to 6,676 yards. With Simon Oxley on his way back from the UK (he was trying to qualify at the Belfry) and lost somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, only seven players would compete in this US final-stage qualifier with a formation of three-four. Dave, Paul and Mark (the “B” group) would lead the way and Ralph, Rand, Bob and Nick (the “A” Team) would bat second.

The stage was set. The crowd hushed. A titter ran through the onlookers (and was arrested for indecency) as the group photo was popped. Mark set up in his weird no-ball practice swing (he apparently only puts his ball down when he’s ready to play!). And they were off! There were six wailing swings plus Nick’s propelling variously-marked pills up the first fairway hill to clatter amid yellow range balls. Hey presto, the B.O.pen was underway.

Put it down to nervousness rather than incompetence, but only Rand and Paul made par at the first, and there was much cussing and frowns on foreheads. This course does not ease you into things, and everyone was again tested at the 200 yard uphill 3-par 2^nd, with just Nick and Paul managing to squeak out par. Next thing you know Paul made birdie to Dave’s par at the difficult down-hill 3^rd, and Paul, a struggling 15-handicap outsider according to Ladbrokes official odds list in Vegas, was subpar after three holes and looking as if he would mercilessly throttle both the course and his opponents.

Now all amateurs know that the toughest hole to par is the one after a birdie – how do the pros keep their emotions in check? The answer is that they do it often enough it barely registers with them. Paul, sad to say dropped a double-bogey on his after-birdie hole, the 4^th, and so it was SNAFU. Mark was our only player to handle the tough dogleg-left 5^th well – his par offset Nick’s HGT-lost-ball-rule bogey-save. And then came the par-5 6^th where according to Rand, no one told him about the water that protects the front left, and so his attempt to fade in a low approach from the left was thwarted by that watery grave.

The tough #1-index 8^th got all players, but failed to dismay our dark horse, Mark Ferry, who, on the ninth, smote his shorn-off driver 268 yards over a blind-drive hill and dead-straight too and picked up the first skill prize of the day – the next closest was 15 yards back and in the rough, so well done to Mark! Rand’s quad here foretold of his energy-drain due to the humid heat today. Everyone fell in upon the dear halfway house girl (metaphorically speaking) and cleaned her out of qatorade, and hot-dogs (thanks to Dave!).

On the 10^th almost everyone got par (Nick missed a 4’ birdie putt by hitting it through the break), but Dave and Paul thought there was a prize for highest score on #11, with Paul beating Dave for the tile with a ten (what, man, have you no arms?). Rand was a ready competitor for this “prize” though as he notched double-figures on both #15 & #17. The Committee will be re-introducing the wooden porridge-spoon prize, aka the Gross Score Award, at our next tournament for the highest score over bogey-3 (with a tie decided by multiple quads!). We have a duty to recognize such agony.

The group reported in with two birdies on #12, by Mark and Nick, and just one bogey. On the following hole this ability was flipped when only Bob and Dave managed par on the dogleg right 13^th. And then there was a miracle on

The seemingly simple 15^th hole picked everyone’s pocket (Rand chose to eschew the fairway and play it from both the right and left trees), and then came Paul’s unfortunate downfall on the (index) easiest hole on the course where he 5-putted. To be fair, several of those putts were not actually on the green so his stats will not be affected adversely, but that triple turned out to be the difference between the winner’s laureate and bridesmaid. The same can be said for Bob on #18, the group’s second skill hole of the day. Bob yanked his rescue club from the tee straight left to a position 1 foot from the trunk of the tallest evergreen on the course where his ball came to rest (sullenly I might add) on a lonesome pine-cone. From there, dear reader, it was not pretty, but suffice to say, Bob’s quad dropped him from 1^st to 3^rd.

Tomorrow’s Washington Post headlines would read: “Rand Runs out of Steam”, “Mark wins the Gorilla”, “Dave stays in Sophomore Slump and seeks Psychiatrist”, “Ralph Feels Better and Finally Wins a Prize”, “Bob Careens off a Cone for 3^rd Place”, “Paul’s 5-Putt Puts him in 2^nd Place”, and “Nick Scrambles and Survives OB for The Win”.

So, cheers and jeers were heard over drinks in the bar, as the Open Scorer announced that none of the HGT players’ scores were good enough to get them into the British Open next week. The claret jug, however, would stay in Short Hills for the two-week mid-season break. The skill prize winners rummaged around in the pro-shop in the HGT extravaganza blowout (thanks to Mark for sharing his spoils, and good luck with his trip to Virginia – all here at the HGT are praying for surgical success, but if he comes back with a vasectomy we’ll still be proud of his manhood).

The Tour stops in Morristown next on July 22^nd landing the HGT helicopter on the Morris County Golf Club putting green. The 1^st hole punch bowl feature, known as “Sleepy Hollow” will again challenge our ever-ready group. Its caddy-shack-time there, so bring your light bags and get ready to become an HGT legend. This reporter is off to Charleston South Carolina next week – as the old saying goes, mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Cheerio.

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 - The "Liberty" Invitational at Plainfield Country Club :

The inscrutable Chinese have done it again! The following report was leaked to your man-on-the-spot (you know, the guy in the trenchcoat who hangs out at HGT tournaments by lurking in the bushes and peeping through holes in the outer barrier-fence).

The morning of this Plainfield HGT Tournament, the Tibetan contingent handed the Olympic torch over to the President of IASA-HGT who, in the afternoon, proceeded to pass it along to his fellow members of the HGT team (golfers-without-skill & borders) and they hit ceremonial balls around the rolling 18 holes Donald Ross called Plainfield Country Club. As the sun was setting (and the 4th HGT group was finishing its 6 ½ hour round, they handed the flame, which was barely flickering by this time, Dave Smith handed it on to the Uzbekistanis.

An ugly event almost marred this wonderful privilege. Union County activists, protesting China's crackdown in Tibet, briefly disrupted the Olympic flame-handover ceremony at the club gatehouse, calling for a boycott of the Summer Games in Beijing and even threatening not to watch the HGT-Play-Offs. The disruption unnerved the thousands of spectators, dignitaries and Olympic officials who had packed into the tight Plainfield clubhouse reception area and ancient stadium to watch actresses posing as priestesses light the Olympic flame from the sun's rays (or was that just Nick in his Capri’s?).

Police said they detained the three French protesters (they hadn’t done anything wrong, its just fun sticking it to the froggies) as members of the Paris-based rights group Golféres Avec No-Bordéres, who had evaded security, unfurled their black banner, which depicted the Olympic rings as handcuffed golf holes. “If the flame is sacred then so are humans,” the French group leader Bob Fazen said in a written statement. “We cannot let the Chinese co-opt the HGT-Logo, a symbol of piece, without denouncing the deplorable state of human rights in this county.” More protests broke out in the parking lot -- a Tibetan man, who looked remarkably like Chris Peter covered himself and his guests, Tom & Wayne Coltus, with red paint and lay on the ground, forcing Nick Johnson, the torchbearer at the time, to weave around him as other protesters shouted ”Flame of shame.” Chris said in a written statement (there seems to have been a lot of paper and pencils at this ceremony) that two of his members were “violently detained after unfurling banners on the cart-path as the torch made its way to the first tee.”

Tuesday's ceremony marked the HGT’s leg in the countdown to the Beijing Games, setting the Olympic flame on an unprecedented global odyssey via the Short Hills Mall, before arriving at the National Stadium in Beijing for the August 8 opening ceremony. The HGT’s Dave Smith is still looking to get a handle on the trophy after losing it while travelling in Tibet. Doug Duncan chimed in…”Either Tibet is open or it's not.” (pithy words from Monsieur Duncan). Mark Ferry added, “Americans should not be allowed to play for the Chinese Rest-of-the-World Team just to get in the Play-Offs.” And Scott Koppa was heard to say, quite out of breath due to being late again, “The Olympic torch should not be turned into a smokescreen to cover up the Committee’s Rules abuses and egregious handicap manipulation.”

The Committee For Better Golf officials insisted last week that the relay on the green elysian fields of Plainfield would proceed as planned. “All the preparations for the torch relay in Metuchen, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu and Glen Ridge are proceeding as planned," Palestinian Olympics organizer Greg Framke said.

Max Bergen, who was wearing wrist bandages to cover up the effects of his early season Committee detention and water boarding, eschewed the chance to publicly display his HGT affiliation, but did show off his recent alliance with the Saint Andrews golf club across the Hudson. He later marked his silent protest by sprayed his ball all over the relay route, but he did manage a fine bomb on the Long Drive, hole #16, measuring 292 meters which did a fly-by over Greg’s pitiable mere 263 yard blast…the king is dead, long live the king.

Special mentions go to Nick’s 4-putt on #16 which ended his hopes of taking the Torch back home; Mark’s 10 on #18 which included 3 drives into the corner pond plus several out-of-bounds blasts courtesy of his new drive-better glasses; Chris Peter’s and Ralph Lombardi’s birdies on #5 (at least some of us can putt); Rand’s snowman on #1 and quad on #14 (with two in the water there)…but at least he handles the short money-holes well!

Mark Ferry was beaten out for closest-to-the-pin on #6 by Rand Jacobs with a 9’ dart, and by Rand’s guest, the incredibly wealthy Steve Rothschild, who tossed his ball to a close-shaved 6’ on #11. Greg Framke finally came through on one of the toughest courses on the Historic Golf Tour® as his net-72 nosed out Scott Koppa’s similar net score via a back-nine match-of-cards for first place on this Olympic day. Dave Smith got the brass ring with third place and a net-75 three furlongs back (Dave figures if he comes in 3rd each time, he’ll get his name etched on the trophy for a second year in succession -- someone really needs to take Dave aside for a new-math lesson.

The super-fit HGT flag-waving Olympic-sized golf group will meander its way down to tricky Metuchen next week, and the Committee hopes to see you there.

Thursday June 26th 2008 - The "Army Open" at Suneagles:

Last year’s heat was replaced today with heavy humidity as morning thundershowers doused this Tillie gem with the moisture of life. The US military, already stretched thin with two open fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, had to deal with another one at Fort Monmouth this day as the HGT dropped its do-rag-logo-wearing counter-intel unit from the HGT Bell-UH1 “Huey” squadron flying east from the Nakhon Thai Base off the Nadong River, former home of Simon Oxley of the Royal Thai CC (combat cadré).

This combat-golf reporter was embedded in the line of red-bricked residences, spotty with crew-cut grunts, which encircle the golf-course at the Fort. Armed with eye-in-the-sky ‘scopes and a battery of high-powered directional microphones, these are the spy pictures and this is an edit of the 4-hour dialog he picked up from all 18-holes of this HGT assault. To protect the operatives, names and pseudonyms have been substituted:

Captain Benjamin L. Willard – Simon Oxley

Colonel Walter E. Kurtz – Nick Johnson

Photojournalist – Scott Koppa

Lance B. Johnson – James Putman

Jay “Chef” Hicks – Mark Ferry

Chief Quartermaster – Ralph Lombardi

Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore – Greg Framke

Colonel Lucas – Dave Smith

AFRS Radio Announcer – Mike Stevens

(Simon) Willard: [voiceover] I'm still only in Mulligan’s bar in Suneagles... when I zone out, I think I'm gonna wake up back in the north Jersey jungle. When I was home after my first year of service with the Historic Golf Tour, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing. When I was here, I wanted to be on tour; when I was there, all I could think of was getting out. I'm here an hour now... waiting for the mission... getting softer; every minute I stay in this bar, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats on the course, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around, the walls move in a little tighter.

(Nick) Kurtz: I've seen horrors. I remember when I was with HGT-Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a tournament. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot with a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... they had the strength to do that! If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to make birdie without feeling... without passion... without judgment… without thinking. It's awareness that defeats us.

(Scott) Photojournalist: What are they gonna say about Kurtz? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans? That he had wisdom? Bull man! They’re gonna say that he won here today, man…when he was out of it, in another time zone, man, he pulled it off, man!

(Simon) Willard: Could we, uh... talk to Colonel Kurtz?
(Scott) Photojournalist: Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll... uh... well, you'll say "hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you. He won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say, "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"... I mean I can't... I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man...

(Simon) Willard: I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn't even know it then – Fort Monmouth. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through northern New Jersey like a main circuit cable - plugged straight into Kurtz. There is no way to tell his story without telling my own. And if his story really is a confession, then so is mine.

(Simon) Willard: No wonder Kurtz put a weed up Committee’s rear end. The HGT was being run by a four star clown who was gonna end up giving the whole circus away.

(James) Lance: Disneyland. Yeah, man, this is better than Disneyland.

(Simon) Willard: The game was close, real close. I couldn't see it yet, but I could feel it, as if the golf-cart was being sucked upriver and the water was flowing back into the Jersey jungle. Whatever was going to happen, it wasn't gonna be the way they called it back in Nha Trang Short Hills.

(Mark) Chef: I used to think if I died in an evil place then my soul wouldn't make it to heaven. Well, shee-eeet. I don't care where it goes as long it ain't into the river on the 6^th.

(Scott) Photojournalist: He likes you because you're closest to the pin, Chef.

(Simon) Willard: The machinist, the one they called Chef, was from New Brunswick. He was wrapped too tight for the HGT, probably wrapped too tight for New Brunswick. Lance on the forward 50's was a famous golfer from the beaches south of Long Beach Island. You look at him and you wouldn't believe he ever handled a surfboard his whole life. Clean, Mr. Clean, was from some South Hackensack hole. Then there was Phillips, the Chief. It might have been my tour, but it sure as shinola was Chief's window treatment van.

(Ralph) Chief Quartermaster Phillips: My orders say I'm not supposed to know where I'm taking this van, so I don't. But one look at you, and I know it's gonna be hot.
(Simon) Willard: I'm going 75 clicks above the Do Lung bridge, across all 18 holes.
(Ralph) Chief Quartermaster Phillips: That's Building 2067 captain, I curtained it.
(Simon) Willard: That's HGT classified.

(Simon) Willard: Are you crazy? Don't you think it’s a little risky for some R&R?
(Greg) Kilgore: If I say it’s safe to golf this course Captain, then it’s safe to golf this course. I mean I'm not afraid to golf this place, I'll golf this whole base!

(Greg) Kilgore: Charlie don't golf!

(Mike) Radio Announcer: And now here's another blast from the past coming out to Big NJ, all alone in the red-bricks out there with the First Battalion Thirty-fifth Infantry, and dedicated by the fire team at An Khe to their CO Fred the Head: The Rolling Stones' “Satisfaction”.

(Mark) Chef: Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a tournament, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice event, and when it was over, I may never want another.

(Simon) Willard: Charlie don't get much USO. He is dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home: death, or victory.

Colonel (Dave) Lucas: Your mission is to proceed up the eighteen holes along Nung River in a Navy golf cart. Pick up Colonel Kurtz's path at the Nu Mung Ba 2^nd green, follow it and learn what you can along the way. When you find the Colonel, infiltrate his group by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel's command.
(Simon) Willard: Terminate the Colonel?
Colonel (Dave) Lucas: He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And he is still in the field playing golf.
(Ralph) Chief Quartermaster Phillips: Terminate with extreme prejudice.
Colonel (Dave) Lucas: You understand Captain that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist.

(Greg) Kilgore: Smell that? You smell that?
(James) Lance: What?
(Greg) Kilgore: Napalm, son. Nothing in the world smells like that.
[kneels]
(Greg) Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a course doused for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one cartgirl. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole place…Smelled like... victory! Someday this season’s gonna end...
[Kilgore walked off unhappy]

(Nick) Kurtz: Did they say why, Willard, why they want to terminate this Committee?
(Simon) Willard: I was sent on a classified mission, sir.
(Nick) Kurtz: It's no longer classified, is it? Did they tell you?
(Simon) Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your rules were unsound.
(Nick) Kurtz: Are my rules unsound?
(Simon) Willard: I don't see any rule at all, sir.
(Nick) Kurtz: I expected someone like you. Are you an assassin?
(Simon) Willard: I'm a player.
(Nick) Kurtz: You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.

(Simon) Willard: On the river, I thought that the minute I looked at him, I'd know what to do, but it didn't happen. I was in there with him for four hours, not under guard, I was free, but he knew I wasn't going anywhere. He knew more about what I was going to do than I did. If the Generals back in Nha Trang Short Hills could see what I saw, would they still want me to shank him? More than ever probably. And what would his people back home want if they ever learned just how far from them he'd really gone? He broke from them, and then he broke from himself. I'd never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart.

(Greg) Kilgore: What the hell do you know about golfing? You're from goddamned New Jersey.

(Scott) Photojournalist: This is the way the world ends. Look at this course we're on, man! Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

(Simon) Willard: My mission is to make it as far as the eighteenth hole. There's a Green Beret Colonel up there who's gone insane. I'm supposed to outdrive him.
(Mark) Chef: What? Oh, that's typical! We gotta go up there so you can outdrive one of our own guys? That's great! That's just eff’in' great. Crazy! And I thought you were going in there to shoot eagle, or birdie or somethin'.

(Simon) Willard: Hey man, do you know whose in command here?
Starter: Ain't you?

(Simon) Willard: He was one of those guys that had that weird light around him. You just knew he wasn't going to get so much as a scratch here.

(Simon) Willard: Someday this season’s gonna end. That'd be just fine with the boys in the first group. They weren't looking for anything more than a way home. Trouble is, I'd been back there, and I knew that it just didn't exist anymore.

Colonel (Dave) Lucas: Your report specifies intelligence, counter-intelligence, with ComSec I-Corps, an HGT division.
(Simon) Willard: I'm not presently disposed to discuss these operations, sir.
Colonel (Dave) Lucas: Did you not work for the CIA in the HGT?
(Simon) Willard: No, sir.
Colonel (Dave) Lucas: Did you not play on the Historic Golf Tour last year?
(Simon) Willard: Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation - nor would I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in fact exist, sir.

(Greg) Kilgore: Lieutenant, knock that tree line about 100 yards back! Give me some room to breathe!

This reporter must reference the Lombardi-Coppola family as source of inspiration. Mention must also go to Greg Framke for outdriving everyone on #15; to Mark Ferry for dropping the closest bullet to the target on #7; and Simon Oxley who out-back-nined James Putman for the silver-star-jug. The HGT invaders sure made mincemeat of the locals here today, and now its on to the rolling hills of Plainfield, where the tables will be turned.

Thursday, June 19^th, 2008: The "Travelers’ Championship" at The Rock Spring Club:

The ragged band of HGT Wilberries looked spooked after last week’s rout at the hands of Devereux Emmet and his tricky Rockaway River course (all except Scott Koppa, whose late arrival was put down to his still digesting the tray of blue crab claws he had started to demolish seven days ago in Denville). The group arrived atop the north face of the Eiger in West Orange and admired the view of distant Manhattan – the drink of the day. It was another beautifully sunny vista in the mid-70’s with low humidity – the perfect recipe for HGT golf, itself a spicy cocktail of hooks and slices.

And talking of skill, there was $140 to be won this day and Dave Smith was heard to comment on the holes in his wife Patricia’s wardrobe which he could fill with some of that pro-shop prize money – it’s a good job she won’t be reading this or he’d be in deep d……! This week, Greg Framke chauffeured the entire HGT Committee to the club, for which he was healthily tipped (“keep ‘em straight and don’t three-putt”).

Last week’s winner, Chris Peter, who was supposed to have delivered the HGT solid-silver Trophy to the club as he was not playing this historic June 19^th, was a.w.o.l. together with the golf antique, and suspected of having hocked our claret jug and skipped town to live a life of Riley. Turned out Riley was also nowhere to be found, so the conspirators were presumed to be in cahoots, or was it cheroots?

After 3-putting nine times last week, Nick Johnson had relegated his trusty old flatstick and replaced it with a new Yes!-Sir putter he got on Father’s Day. His mind was re-psyched and ready for greens that weren’t as slick as Emmet’s 13-stimps where he’d amassed over 50 putts in his round. The Usual Suspects were at the club awaiting our fresh-faced crew. Greg noticed the pool-girl skimming the lake for ice-floats (the swim team at RSC is famous for chilling their pool water down to disrupt opponent teams).

Ralph Lombardi rumbled in feeling much better for having whipped Arnold Palmer down at Neshanic, while Simon Oxley was sporting golf shorts that displayed legs almost as spindly as Nick’s. Paul Partridge was looking as sophisticated as he did at Suburban. He did not have his Family in tow and, strangely, doesn’t appear to sweat either…the Committee will have to look into this, and I’m not talking about his legal status in this country, I mean his place in the human race on this planet – he could be an Alien!

As the group was discussing new ideas for next year such as a Hole-in-1 and Birdie pool to be funded from the Registration Fee, Chris Peter guiltily skulked onto the Club patio and returned our historic and valuable trophy – with remorse. He said he was off to see his wife on her birthday (isn’t he is divorced?).

The two groups sorted out which fore-caddie each was getting and, with just enough battery juice left the group was immortalized in photograph, and the important individual swings were also captured for posterity and a good laugh. He-man every one of us, we each boomed out from the back-in-black tees out over the lake and on down to the bunker-defended green – only Nick managed to par the 1^st …an unfortunate portent for the rest of them. Greg bounced back with par at #2 and just missed a three at the long and hog-backed third green.

The fourth gave everyone a chance to tune up for the Long-Drive skill prize lurking ahead on the sixth hole. Paul and Nick negotiated this toughest hole on the course, under whose green two horses had been buried left and right-side some 80 years ago, with par-4’s. Simon, Dave and Nick also managed par on the long and tricky pin-positioned fifth, while Scott was erring on the side of quantity with a double-digit – one must assume he was playing two balls and aggregated his score. Loud party music at tee-side and the wailing of sirens on this hole caused none of the group to lose focus – they are a dedicated band.

Number 6 was notable for two significant events. First, Paul outdrove Ralph, our low-handicapper, for the long drive with a 284-yard smite (he also managed closest to the line, and prettiest arc, though these were non-monetary qualities), while Dave has his clubs (and cart) abducted – heaven knows how…perhaps he was looking skyward, or planning his acceptance speech, but a player in another group presumably thought Dave’s clubs were superior to his own and drove off with them. Now Dave had only hit three shots with the other man’s clubs before he realized they were not his and promptly chased the flea-dog that stole his weapons.

Ralph birdied the 379-yard 7^th and Paul birdied the short par-4 8^th – indeed Ralph was putting more stick into his ball today than in previous tournaments…all to the good. Dave stuck a 144-yard pitching wedge just 1 yard short of the Closest-to-the-Pin 10^th for mo money and the pro-shop prize (which he proceeded to spend on women’s clothing – the Committee has made a note to reserve space in the female changing rooms for Dave at future tournaments) – and followed that up with a birdie 3 on the tough down hill 11^th. With another birdie on #14, Dave was well positioned to make his move to haul in the first place title, but when he sagged to double and then triple on his last two holes, he dropped from big money to small purse, and just when he was looking at a sub-par back-nine.

Greg picked up his game on the back especially when he started putting by poking his putter between his legs. If only this reporter’s camera hadn’t run out of battery you’d see for yourself, dear reader. Instead, you will have to use your imagination of a golfer holding the grip of the club behind his bottom with the head of his putter peeking out in front (yes, that’s the mental image we’re looking for! Not pretty is it?). Other than a triple on #15, the rust is definitely coming off Greg. He was even mellow enough to ignore the extra holes that Nick trod into his cigar on the fourteenth.

Ralphie’s back-nine was showing glimpses of the game he’s laid claim to at each HGT event up to this point, but it was Simon who mounted the strongest charge with birdie on the par-5 thirteenth, sinking a 20-footer with his eyes closed. His undoing however came in the right-side bunker on the short sixteenth when he failed to get out cleanly and doubled. His net-72 gave Simon the silver medal, while Dave’s net-76 landed him third and pushed Greg out of the money.

Nick held steady by finishing par-par for a net-70 and first place. Amazingly in the bar afterwards, while thanking his family and Earl Woods in particular for the long road he’d travelled and grueling practice regimen that toughened him into the honed competitive machine that he is, he managed to strike the identical pose holding the coveted trophy that he held earlier in the season with his win at Suburban. Uncanny!

After the Ryder-Cup playoff points were awarded, the Rest-of-the-World team displays a commanding and telling lead – underscoring the hoary old tenet that 90% of life is just showing up. Yes, it was crackers all round, as the HGT had blown its entire entertainment budget on the post-game eats and treats last week at Rockaway. There would be no dancing ladies this day (unless you count Dave’s catwalk in his pro-shop purchase outfit), and the paparazzi were notably thin on the ground.

At the p ost-tournament award ceremony and drive-by parade, Nick was teary-eyed amid the jeers and calls for a handicap cut and official non-committee inquiry. There would be more increases than cuts to shuffle the odds going into the HGT’s event next week in the combat zone that is Fort Monmouth…site of the famous “Framke Rule”. So, fellow golfers, remember your Kevlar as you prepare for our next tournament at Suneagles, and keep yer heads down cause its “take no prisoners” at the War-on the-Shore down in Monmouth County.

Wednesday June 11th 2008 - The "HGT-Open" at Rockaway River CC:

Retroactive changes – the bedrock of HGT committee policy – reared its ugly wart-bespotted head this fine sunny day on the banks of the bubbling Rockaway River in the suburbs of Denville. This unrelenting, unintelligible reporter is referring here to the change of names for this year’s tournament at RRCC from last year’s (and last week’s) “Emmetropia” (too complicated, too esoteric the Committee is on record as saying) to this year’s “The HGT-Open” – a tip of our collective hat to the USGA’s “US Open” which starts today, the day after ours. We are a group of trendsetters, or is it trainspotters?

The crowds were certainly out if force at Rockaway, where a bevy of ladies who’d been warming up the course in the morning, were now pressing against the ropes hoping to catch a glimpse of the HGT talent on show this afternoon. The laconic Chris Peter, with his George Hamilton look-alike tan (the Miami-Vice golden shade perhaps does not quite measure up to its Hollywood nephew’s laid-back lacquered look), showed up early ahead of his two guests, Carmen and Al (from the concrete trade, if you know what I mean), both of natural Napoli stock. Carmen had recently sustained two back operations, the second having the serious side-effect of relieving him of his golf game, while Al was due, after the HGT golf tournament, to compete in a Payne Stewart impersonation contest.

What with all the paparazzi straining to get at the HGT golfers, Simon Oxley and Scott Koppa arrived with bodyguards and late (Ralph Lombardi was so late that he didn’t show at all)! The unfortunate committee chairperson was stressed at the possibility of this major tournament starting with only half the field. Chris, last year’s champ at this event and slum landlord, was scoffing at Nick Johnson’s new trade in the foreclosure industry. Clearly Chris was secretly jealous as later in the round he was overheard feverishly picking Nick’s brain for insight into that man’s genius ways of accumulating properties at rock-bottom prices in the same town that Jesse James was assassinated (anyone know where that is?).

Randall Jacobs and Mark Ferry were clearly taking this Open tournament seriously as they had been busy warming up on the practice ground since the club’s sprinkler system came on at 4:30am. Mark had dodged the HGT love-you-long-time groupies with his new flip-up clip-on shades (the he-manly model, of course), while Randall was wearing his golf hat so low even the other HGT golfers didn’t recognize him - but then again, this is Randall’s first official tournament and the others actually didn’t know him!

Given the sporadic arrival of players, lunch was a disjointed affair. Simon and Scott, both being busy businessmen, had been in meetings all morning organizing both the purchase and marketing of all US-based health transportation-delivery companies. They inhaled their lunch on the first tee, complete with linen-covered table and silverware, as they took their lunch out on the course – all so that they would not receive the committee’s heavy-handed penalty of 2 strokes for missing their tee-time. If only the HGT press-photographer had remembered to load film into his camera and caught that 1 in a million shot of the new multi-sport of lunch-golf.

Hot-potato topics chewed over at lunch included the Play-Offs, with Nick confirming that the Points won through the season would produce a descending order of players who would have the right to choose which team they wish to represent according to slots available per team per match. No matter how many times and ways the he explains the methodology, Nick’s wonderful dioramas still were met with blank stares from the sheep. Today’s event would include two Closest-to-the-Pin prizes – on the short but uphill #9, and the slightly longer and also uphill #14. The talent would tee-off the not-so-talented white tee-boxes giving them just 6,400 yards of terrain, which would mean, given the erratic shots this crew has delivered on the HGT so far this season, most players would actually walk about 12,000 yards in the mid-80’s high-UV hot sun.

Thanks to Simon, Nick is finally once again able to wallpaper the rest of Short Hills, while Ralph was presumed to still be trolling the greater Denville metropolitan area looking for naked windows to be treated with drapes. The customary 1^st-tee pictures having been snapped (except Randall – he must have swung too fast for the camera to have picked up anything more than a blur), while not a man got par on the “cemetery hole” first, Randall was off to a gallop with the best-of-the-field front-nine of 42. Scott, dressed in all-black (what was he thinking?) was trying harder to ward off heat-stroke than to not 3-putt. Ultimately, it turned out to be a classic duel between Scott, Mark and Nick for who could 3-putt more (Scott won by laying putter on ball an amazing 51 times – another HGT record!).

Mark “hit for the cycle” twice – the committee really should take him on one side and tell him this is golf not baseball. With a birdie on the long second, through his round Mark racked up two birdies, pars, bogies, doubles and triples, and very nearly an ace on #9 where he picked up the first big-money skill prize for closest-to-the-pin with a 7-iron to 8’. He beat out Nick for this honor by a mere 323 millimeters (Nick will be playing for the Rest-of-the-World team in the Ryder Cup so this reporter is getting used to quoting distances in European measurements)…that’s just short of a kilometer isn’t it?

Scott, while having fun airmailing most of Rockaway’s greens (except the tenth, where everything in his bag could get him only halfway up Hamburger Hill) and then four-putting them when he did reach, figured he wasn’t getting sufficient mileage out of the number of times he was using his clubs. So, on the short 4-par 13^th he performed a Chung Leung double-hit – it was Scott’s personal salute to US Open history -- he was flagging, and so determined that two hits per swing would be a more efficient way of completing his round as well as preserve enough energy to actually get back to the clubhouse.

Simon had a very respectable back-nine with birdie on #12 and par-4’s on 16 & 17, just enough to pip Nick for third place and the huge 3^rd Place paycheck. Last week’s winner, Nick, had left his game at Suburban and was last seen looking for it on the banks of the Rockaway River. Randall was a racehorse built for a sprint, so when he found out we were playing all 18 this fine day, he found he had nothing left in his tank and collapsed with four 7’s and an 8 on the back-9 to card an inward 57 (at least on his first ball, he was a No-Return on his second!). He is at least rewarded with the HGT version of the wooden spoon…two more strokes on his handicap for his next event (Randall tied for this honor with Nick and Scott).

Out of the two groups, the last man up on the 14^th tee was Carmen Santillo, the Italian Stallion. He swept a sweet 5-iron to the raised green and was closest to the pin earning him a shopping spree in the Pro-Shop (whatever he could carry out the door in 3-seconds, he could keep). There was just one more un-announced and “un-prized” skill left to battle for and that was the longest drive on #16. Nick pounded out his usual 285 yard crowd-stopping screamer, only to be pipped by Chris’ viciously-hooked double-top-spin tee-shot specialty, which first landed a mere 182 yards off the tee but rolled the rest of the way out to 297 yards. Of course Chris failed the on-the-spot drug test that’s mandatory for beating Nick at long drive (unless Mark is also in the contest). As there was no money available in the HGT war-chest for this prize, Chris was conceded the hollow victory while Nick put his loss down to tired old balls.

While first-place came down to a photo finish here today between Chris and Mark who both netted 75, it was Chris’ lesser back-nine collapse that nosed out Mark for the winner’s circle – and while in this horse analogy, it seems appropriate to suggest that Chris be put out to pasture on account of his qualifying for Medicare this year. He’s always seemed keen on going to stud! And aa a public announcement, the public should know that he’s available for rental as he floats, flies and *****!

And so the pen is (finally) put down on the HGT history book with another “first” – Chris is the HGT’s first returning event champion…three-cheers for Father Christmas. But the true winner this heavy-hearted day was, of course, the course, which beat us all up again. The stone crabs we hosed down in the bar afterwards were a close second. Those eats were sumptuous and tasty good. Chris fell asleep during the trophy presentation (see photo above), but woke up as Al and Carmen offered to take him out to dinner.

Official Note: The resident HGT Historian says that last year also there were only two players who carded net scores in the 70’s. Next year we may play off the ladies tee-box.

Ciao, Luciano…e vista Rock Spring andiamo. E tutti bella!!

Tuesday June 3rd 2008 - The "Oasis" at Suburban GC:

Suburban ’08, the week Hillary went down, was also a first for the traveling road-show known as the HGT…we returned to a club we played last year. Scooching under the minimum player field set by the club’s power elite, we were due to be ten, but thanks to using a Bushnell range finder instead of his GPS to get to the course, Chris Peter is to this minute, still driving around in search of the low-profile entrance to this fine old Tillie gem.

Our welcome was as warm this June afternoon as the sun shining on this glorious day at Goodwood. Nick arrived early to sort out a “no-double-taxation-without-representation” issue with the behind-the-scenes potentates, and he successfully dammed the money flow to Trenton by blocking a second 7% pro-shop tax from its delivery to the Corzine retirement fund. Watch out Obamma, call a town-hall meeting this minute!

The rookie-of-the-week “award” went to Paul Partridge who looked debonair and sported a casting swing – with his new HGT shirt he’ll look absolutely fabulous at future events. And speaking of the London crowd, Paul brought along a bandit known north-of-the-border as Ian Welham – from Manchester actually (the real one, not New Hampshire). Ian adroitly handles a 5 handicap and plays here at Suburban in a winter league (either ice-hockey or the polar bear club, not sure).

Greg Framke was surprisingly calm after a morning in the DMV where he was applying for his driving license…watching him on the first tee, he’s the one with an “L” on his back. Simon Oxley looked like he’d come here straight from buying another company, while Mike Giunta, Bob Fazen and Mark Ferry all went straight to the practice putting green – that would be considered a “tell” in poker! Dave Smith reported that his family dynasty of golf champions had been broken as Patricia did not win at Chubb. He was now concerned about bad juju for him today – you see, Dave is from the Islands, so he has a deep-seated belief in voodoo and reggae, so he was nervously fingering a shrunken head talisman at lunch. If he didn’t win this day, Dave promised to play his next tournament in Rasta dreadlocks, mon!

Over a magnificent Kobe steak and chips lunch, uppermost on most minds (not all those present were so well endowed) was who would cross over to the dark side (aka play for the Rest-of-the-World team) in the Ryder Cup Playoffs. With the number of registered players entitled to play heavily skewed to the US, there is a substantial temptation to claim foreign heritage to get onto the Rest-of-World team and get to play the special playoff courses of Canoe Brook and Somerset Hills. For example, Greg’s forebears being Boston Royalists could get him a slot on the RoW team, however Bob’s claim to having fought with the British in the Falklands is a bit thin (and quite possibly not true).

After Mark had chowed down his second steak, the smiling group gathered at the back Blue tee-markers for the obligatory photos -- and what a rogue’s gallery these usual suspects provided (see above). Don’t be fooled by Mark’s perfect position at the top of his follow-through – it’s totally posed since he can apparently hear the battery hum of a charge flowing through a digital camera’s microprocessor. Everyone held his breath as Mark teed off and we were rewarded by the best first drive of the group (he still collapsed into a double-bogey at the first with, this reporter suspects, three putts on these way-too-fast-for-him greens). It is true that last week’s champ had been press-ganged by the Committee into playing on a course Mark dislikes.

On #1, Dave claimed to have uprooted Johnny Appleseed’s original towering American oak on his way to carding a working-man’s bogey, but all he returned to the clubhouse with was a couple of motley twigs. But it was Simon who got off to the best start going par-par, and just Bob and Ian made great 3’s at the long into-the-wind 210-yard 3^rd. The only birdie out of the whole gang-of-nine on the front side was Bob’s at the 6^th, and Ian cleverly called his chip-in on the 7^th ahead of the dirty deed (of chipping in, that is). The boom-boom skill longest drive was early - on #4 this day - a 430-yard, also into-the-wind and uphill index #1 tough, tough hole with the fairway pinching in on the left and a right-side bunker devilishly awaiting the long hitters. Only two gorillas were able to keep their long balls in the fairway…first it was Mike with his arms like shorn-off shotguns, and then Dave, who put everything he’s got into launching his WMD out there 260 yards in-between all that danger. It was a he-man’s prize that Dave later exchanged in the pro-shop for two ladies shirts…one lime green, the other pansy purple. Muscle beach will never be the same again!

Surprisingly, almost everyone made par at the short but tricky par-4 10^th, and Ian lipped out another “called” chip-in from the back fringe. At the first closest-to-the-pin-prize 11^th the lead group of Mark, Bob and Mike all air-mailed the green because they trusted the scorecard distance of 167-yards (reasonable, you’d think), but Simon cleverly chose to believe the yardage on the tee-box marker which read 148 yards and landed his ball 7’ 2” to land his first skill prize. Everyone had trouble with the narrow OB-down-the-right-side 12^th with scores ranging from as low as bogey all the way up to a double-digit 10 (the holder of that honor will be kept a close secret between the Committee and Paul Partidge). Only Nick, who roped a 4-iron approach, followed by a back-of-the-hole birdie putt at #13 got the handle of that hole.

By now all three groups were waiting on every shot thanks to a slow group of visitors ahead who were having more trouble than the HGT with the wind and fast greens this day. And so it was that the only other highlight of our back-9 was Simon landing his second skill prize at the uphill #16 where his 24’ 5” was by no means the closest to the back-left pin BUT it was on the green (a condition the Rule-Man suggested the group changed after the round, but he was loudly shouted down by the raucously boozy crowd). Greg, it should be noted, came alive over the final stretch making par at 17 & 18.

So, there’s a new HGT’s “money-man”! Back on the patio, Simon was proudly showing off the new putting book his two skill-prize wins had just earned him. The beer and banter was flowing as the Committee awarded third place to Dave, second to Bob, and first to Nick whose net 72, just one over par, was thanks to his finally dropping some putts for once. Handicaps have now been adjusted – mostly up (same as last year as this course is deceptively difficult). Next on the busy HGT schedule, it’s up to Denville for the Rockaway River classic, and if it doesn’t stop raining it’ll look more like the Yangtze floodplain. Your humble servant reporter will see you all there in his Sou-Chi-Minh-‘wester!

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008: The "Last Stand" at Knoll West GC:

General “Nick” Custer stealthily climbed the hill at Wounded Knee (aka West Knoll). The throbbing sound of war drums seemingly followed his every move. The air was thick with death-curdling shrieks and cries from the native American pow-wow that was building pressure down on the practice range in the badlands below. There would be no driving or chipping this day – in fact the mere survival of his division was upper-most on the General’s mind this dry, sunny and glorious day.

General Nick dismounted his trusty appaloosa jeep steed and tied it to a dappled willow. It had suddenly turned eerily quite the moment his right-hand bat-man, Lieutenant Dave, rolled up and proceeded to report on the tribes of South Carolina he had recently had a narrow escape from. He also mentioned chubb, and Custer was not sure if the Lieutenant was referring to the securing of red-skin prisoners, or a personal problem. They agreed there could be a scalping out there today on the eighteen holes at Little Bighorn – especially if Custer’s troops failed to apply their military ration of sun block. The parking lot was full of Conestoga wagons.

The Lakota Northern Cheyenne must surely have lost their way to be here in northern New Jersey, but a p.a. system bellowed that the People of Canada were amassing with the Arapaho and Crazy Horse and that the tribes were planning to drive out ahead of our posse and run a slow-down campaign. Custer thought the enemy was simply silly in announcing their plans over a sitting-bull-horn, but then he was not too bright!

This slow-play harassment was sure to affect the game of Private Putman, who was already feeling the colly-wobbles as he dropped his bag of weapons off with the company bag-man. Rifleman Ralph also was looking particularly squinty-eyed and unhappy at having to miss his lunch-break when Custer posted him to Watch-duty down by the putting green. Ralphie was still getting his strength back after the campaign led by Custer over the Yellowstone River, known as Roselle.

Mark, known to his fellow troops as the Ferryman of Hades on account of his Roman ancestry, was far too happy to be attending Custer’s Last Stand tournament. He was clearly confident of surviving the massacre that was about to be enjoined and known as The Battle of the Greasy Grass this day. Our small band of eight (including three raw recruits Scott, Chris and James, each one fresh out of the Academy with barely peach fuzz for face hair), would be sorely in need of the 7^th Cavalry later in the afternoon this day that shall live in infamy…curse the over-use that phrase! Infamy, infamy, everyone’s got it in-fa-me said Custer

The battle was joined by the first group when Private Putman chipped in from just off the battlefield for a birdie two and the first scalp of the day. But after four holes of well-played sorties, the Private succumbed to the harrying tactics of the enemy ahead who were tauntingly dallying over every shot. This cost the Private many shots, and caused him to be known this day forward as No-Put-man – history can be a cruel mistress. The group ahead of them apparently included Sitting Bull - at least that’s how fast they were playing.

The course at Wounded Knoll had recently been restored to the battlefield Steamshovel Banks had first created nearly 100 years ago. But today the many deep bunkers would provide no hiding respite from the golf spirits.

The battle ebbed back and forth between the groups with Custer sailing smoothly around the front nine in 3-over, but stabbing himself in the foot on #10 by accidentally hitting his ball while practice stroking, and after taking a penalty, he then hit it off the green altogether. What a leader – at that point he was more of a bleeder as he couldn’t stop the errors. Crucial strategic boobs that would cost him not only the respect of his men but also his golf score, when he double-bogeyed the next two holes, was fatally wounded and had to drag himself home to scratch out second place.

Fortunately new-shoe-man Chris was clear-headed enough on #12 to throw a dart to just over eight feet to win the Close-to-the-Pin medal of honor this afternoon. It was a shot whose heroism was matched only by Lieutenant Dave’s bobbling, dinking, doinky putt from way off the green on #15 for birdie.

Even though the battle had taken its toll early on The Ferryman when a flinty native arrow had gotten in his way on #1 and cost him a triple, steady putting would be the difference between his usual 4-putt average and his score this day on the Black Hills in the Badlands. Mark turned out to be the hero of Custer’s defeat and winner of the Claret Jug medal of honor. New shirt…new champ…top-points…yessirr!!!!

Coming up 18 our group was fleeing in full retreat from the natives. And while everyone’s drive was perfect, the battle had been won and lost over the last four holes as Lieutenant Dave squeezed past No-Put-man for third place on a match of cards. The weather was perfect, glinting off the distant teepees -- it must have been the firing of Yahoo as official forecaster of the HGT.

Strangely out of place on these fields of the Indian Wars, this commentator should mention, were the cement trucks and rollers of the 3^rd Sicilian Panzer division. A little mixing of historical images is common with revisionism – a technique of which this reporter is particularly fond. The salt-in-our-wounds of the buffalo chips in the I-survived-the-battle celebration tasted somehow sweet with the knowledge that we would return to Elysian Fields of golf next week…hopefully to the oasis at Suburban.

So, its down-the-road again and without our compass, we crept stealthily away as the natives were quiet in their tents. It just leaves this reporter to repeat the phrase of the day still echoing in everyone’s ears……. Hai-ya-hai-ya-hai-ya-hai-yaaaaa…. Hai-ya-hai-ya-hai-ya-hai-yaaaaa….

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008: The "Race-to-the-Cup" at Roselle GC:

The United States Postal Service, whose motto is “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”, were deploying boat service because of the rain this Tuesday. The National Weather Center in Bodunk, Idaho had lost transmission due to unforeseen sun-spots, and Eldrick Ferry, curator of the Eldrick Woods golf mausoleum, had urged the HGT-committee to postpone its opening tournament due to his ominous forecast of continuous afternoon rain. Yet the HGT committee decided to follow the Yahoo.com chimp who guaranteed a mere 30% chance of intermittent rain.

Yet an Irish mist hung in the parking-lot air of Roselle golf club on May 20^th around midday, as Nick Johnson pulled into the sole handicap spot. Being the primary handicap-adjuster for the Tour, Nick assumed the spot was reserved for him. Things were looking rosy until a nonagenarian pulled up in his black model-T, brandishing his blue Handicap badge like a colt-45 and threatened to dent Nick’s off-roader. A dark omen…in retrospect, one the HGT should have paid closer attention to.

Setting up his table of free HGT-logo golf shirts and lemonade stand under an ancient Raynor oak awaiting the HGT warrior-players, the second sign dropped from a bird’s business-end and narrowly missed the valuable non-wicking merchandise. Indeed, a man arriving in a so’wester (for lunch only) was the third. And, another fellow coming off the course complaining that everything he touched was wet was the fourth sign. Apparently God should have parted the waves or split one lunch special between 5,000 for the Committee to have been nudged into the correct action this day…that of postponing. But, alas poor Yorrick…

Instead, we fell upon the band of warm and dry eaters inside the clubhouse as club-pro Vinnie Harmon’s assistant swam out to the 16^th to set up the skill prize measuring paraphernalia. James Putman swannied in at the last moment to greet his guests, Bill, Rich and Dave (their scores this day remind this reporter of the three stooges in their Oscar-winning movie “A Day at the Golf Course”). James was sporting his new Jif-mobile range-rover. Meanwhile, Simon Oxley was scouring the heavens muttering “monsoon” and something about needing to warm up for his round with a bevy of Thai masseuses. Ralph Lombardi, only the second golf expert to come from Italy this century, arrived in his company tractor-trailer, while Bob Fazen roared up in his mid-life-crisis large-P car (of which this reporter is famously jealous), and Scott Koppa walked in dressed for the beach (clearly he also subscribes to Yahoo weather alerts). Greg Framke moseyed into lunch wearing his Harley leathers and causing all the LOL’s (little old ladies) to swoon off their chairs.

The hospitality of the Roselle staff was as good as rumored, and our already dampened group were welcomed warmly and treated like members. Raynor’s short course was aided this day by Mother Nature. She poured on bucket loads of water making the true-rolling greens less receptive and the reasonable rough noticeably tougher. Of course keeping the gloves and grips dry was to be a Herculean effort…that being said it was the same for everyone. Clearly, James is a mudder, born of a mudder and fadder - his birdie on #7 and Ralph’s chip-in-birdie on #2 were the only true golf highlights from this gang of ten.

The rain took its toll both on scores – there were plenty of 6’s, and a more than embarrassing number of 7’s and 8’s – and on the round. Standing water on the greens forced the untimely conclusion of the round after nine holes. This player-reporter suffered a calamitous 7 on the short 4-par #5 with an unplayable lie, next to a fence abutting Route 22. The story of the day, however, belongs to caber-tossing Simon who displayed his Scottish roots with his follow-through release on #6 tee. Where Ben Hogan talks of pronating the wrists, Simon’s yet-to-be-written e-book will focus on the actual release of hands from the club. Simon is a multi-simultaneous-sport enthusiast…soon to be appearing on ESPN III. His driver finished 25 feet stuck up a spectator tree, behind the tee-box – a distance just surpassed by his tee-shot. Fortunately, lumberman Bob, who had been through the required six-months training program at Fort Bragg to specialize himself in the dislodging of golf balls from military-course trees (at no minimal taxpayer expense, this reporter might add), launched a branch missile which knocked the offending club to the ground in one throw! Too bad the TV-cameras were packed away back in the truck, as this diversion from golf would have made for good TV.

The three groups finally paddled back to the clubhouse to find the course had been closed due to it being under water (there was a sign on the Pro-Shop window saying “gone home, come back tomorrow”). With Greg and Nick agreeing to tie for second with net-38 ½’s, the trophy was happily awarded to James who had galloped away five furlongs clear of the nags with a net-34 ½. That’s net 3-under-par and quite an accomplishment given the adverse conditions. The closest-to-the-pin skill prize was scheduled for #16, so since we were stopped on #9, sitting in the bar, the skill that was deployed to win the Pro-Shop merchandise credit of $100 turned out to be cutting a deck of cards for an Ace – something which both James and Scott are apparently more skilled at than the rest of us wet wallabies!

This was the HGT’s first time out in the shoe-box known as the Roselle Golf Club. The weather may have finished our round prematurely, but it did not put a damp cloud on the quality of the course, the club’s staff or its members. It was a camaraderie-building season-starting tournament and we shall return in ’09 (more than this reporter can say for Hilary). We’re down-the-road for now, looking for a hilly Banks course in Parsippany known as the Knoll (and reputed to be filled with bullets and bodies). Hopefully we’ll find, on Wednesday May 28^th, raised greens bathed in sunshine with not a corpse in sight! Adios muchachos.

Tuesday, May 1^st, 2007: The “Inaugural” at Montclair GC:

Drops of rain spotted the road as players began their journey to the Montclair Golf Club, but as the last man had arrived at the trophy table to collect their official score-card, not only was the sun shining but a smiling (and eternally philosophical) Yogi Berra had also come out to be greeted by Yankee die-hards (Steve Waxgiser) and Red Sox fans alike (Chris Marbaix and Nick Johnson)...yes, the boys of summer were eager to attack the greens (well, pale greens mixed with dressing - rather like a caesar salad).

Phil the Starter and Commandant Nick marshaled the (un)ruly horde in to lunch, (an army marches on its belly), which overlooked the Spring scene of #2 and #3 Nine...both Donald Ross designs. The voters came out in favor of the prize being split 3-ways, and players inwardly grumbled over the generosity of others' handicaps and the stinginess of their own. The paparazzi distracted the players’ first tee-shots, and the game was "on".

Greg Framke was getting live satellite feed as he sipped a Tom Collins in a 5-star Delhi hotel, and was shocked as Mark "Eldrick" Ferry 5-putted from six feet...an ominous start. Later in that group of reprobates, Chris Marbaix would manage to put back-spin on an uphill putt which whizzed 10" past the cup, hanging momentarily before reversing direction and entering the cup from the back door's back door. Mike Giunta, while nursing several highly contagious bacterial strains that the CDC is still analyzing, was keeping his head down and navigating the Ross doglegs as his playing partners Mark broke the putting record (not in the best way) and Chris airmailed so many greens we're going to call him "The Postman".

Sartorial James Putman, while playing "client golf" with Tom Quinn, Bob Finkel and Steve Waxgiser, managed to bring it home in net sub-par - if only a round of golf consisted of seventeen holes! It was still good enough to win the highly coveted claret jug trophy (lifted from a secret display case in St.Andrews itself) as well as the bounty that is know on the Historic Golf Tour as the First Place Prize. And speaking of prizes, this year's Montclair Golf-Nut award went to Bob Finkel who while massacring the dogleg right 11th sculled his bunker shot which was busy sailing towards the deep darkness of out-of-bounds, fortuitously struck a tree dead-solid-perfect and it ricocheted back on the green, from whence he sank his putt(s) for a nutty triple-bogey. And on the strength of this unparalleled determination, Bob the much-sought-after 40 oz. tin of St.Andrews Virginia peanuts. Henry Rosin was just nipped at the post on this award as his putt through two feet of rough plus eighteen inches of fringe, down twelve feet of treacherously steep away-sloping green only just failed to go in, and apparently his not actually holing that shot was what swayed the cruelly harsh beer-swilling group.

The rain which was forecast to dim our light finally began as the final group putted out the 18th green which can only be described as looking more like a burial ground for two of the dray horses that moved earth around back when this course was originally built. Spirits were high as the core group that is "the tour" decamped to the bar where Chris Peter argued tearfully for a one-stroke higher retrospective handicap adjustment, which resulted in him picking Nick's pocket for second place (Nick had tried to argue that a tie results in a count-back from the eighteenth hole, which Chris played pitifully, but apparently he had not read his own rules as the first level of count-back is the whole back-nine!!!).

And so we are "Down-The-Road" as they say on The (real) Tour, headed for The Oasis at Suburban Golf Club, where the fairways are so narrow, you have to walk in single file. Your faithful reporter will see you all there!

Thursday, May 17^th, 2007: The “Oasis” at Suburban GC:

There had been thunderstorms that night, but as this reporter will attest, the Suburban Golf Club, nestled in the urban sprawl that is known as Union County, was as an oasis in the desert. The sun shone its anointing rays upon our intrepid group of happy wandering golfers as we collected for lunch on the balcony overlooking A.W.Tillinghast’s little-known gem. You get a lofty feeling from this position-on-high as fellow toilers-on-the-course make their way around Tillie’s serpentine doglegs – enough no doubt to at least place at the Westminster Show.

Mike Giunta was apparently trying to fit a full-day’s work into the morning as he flew into his place at our happy table – just as the starter was considering a two-stroke penalty (or spiking Mike’s burger –which the USGA rulebook apparently does not permit). “Fresh” from India, Greg Framke was nattily dressed in a long-sleeve Chrysler take-over golf-shirt, while, rookie on the HGT, Dave Smith, was sporting dark glasses and refused to answer probing questions about his taxes – me-thinks he’s in the witness protection program (or at least should be). James Putman, rueful in having to relinquish the trophy he so handily won at our Montclair event (indeed this reporter was up half the night before buffing off James’ sticky fingerprints from our solid-silverette hardware) due to his hosting guests at his home club Somerset Hills’ Member-Guest, asked that the winner of Suburban not get too attached to the claret jug as he will be bringing his “A”-game to Essex County. The issues to be decided over the lunch greens, were that the Pro-Shop Prizes would be one front-nine and one back-nine “Closest-to-the-Pin” super-skill awards, and that we should play off the rearmost Blue Tees today (perhaps the Long Island Ice Teas had gone to our heads over lunch) and so we were playing Suburban from the tips of just under 7,000 yards (6,471 if you are one of those sticklers for accuracy).

Both this reporter and Dave Smith were so eager to get warmed up on the range adjacent to the first tee, that we neglected to practice putt – an inaction we regretted as we three-putted the first green. Indeed Mark Ferry, who after Montclair had had to re-grip his putter, was overheard muttering to himself something about the absurdity of having to putt-out 3-inchers. This reporter is becoming concerned about a mutinous undercurrent, especially after he sailed his 5-iron to 13’ 2” on the second “Closest-to-the-Pin” after having been 15’ on the first to pick up both awards – such luck surely cannot be repeated at Essex? The uncomplimentary emotions of jealousy, this reporter is sure, contributed to the misuse of the term “good shot, sir” as “fix” and “money man”. Ah, in the heat of battle, an English gentleman must keep his demeanor.

Henry Rosin and Dave Smith ganged up on the Committee to push through an on-course rule change involving the use of electronic range-finders, but since the 3-ball ahead had already forged a 2-hole gap, one can only hope that this did not affect the even-ness of the playing field. What can a reporter who covers the greats such as Tiger and Lefty say about the rounds of seven passionate golfers who’ve not taken a lesson between them, other than to say it was Chris “The Postman" Marbaix (moniker from Montclair) who found his range and carded an impressive 82 for a net-69 and the desirable claret jug trophy. And his prowess doesn’t stop there, for on his 10^th, while this reporter was readying his tee-shot on the 9^th, that distant voices shouting “fore” went unheard as a small white missile (fortunately a Scud-variety, not a Patriot), narrowly missed four heads, and impacted a cart windshield, coming to rest at path-side on the edge of a forest abyss. From there Chris took a drop (free --- aren’t they all?), incredulously hit the green which could hardly be seen from his wooded lie, and sank a 60-footer. It was indeed an heroic way to play the hole, and one in which no member had played that hole beforehand, but it beat out Mark Ferry’s chip-in from the fairway on 18, and Nick’s hitting the flagstick from 152 yards on the 17^th, for the much-sought-after 40 oz. tin of St.Andrews Virginia peanuts. The shrunken post-game group in the Suburban bar (Greg was off to give away his fortune at a charity event, while Mark left for a “foot-rub”) applauded Chis’ adventure, while at the same time gleefully snickering over the Committee’s announcement of the first handicap cut in the HGT history. And talking of historic moments, Mark Ferry was the first to incur the infamous HGT 2-shot-penalty rule off the 15^th tee (he seemed almost happy with the expected notoriety) as his worm-burner driver disappeared into the left-side trees, and was lost.

Handicaps have now been re-adjusted – mostly up. And the Rules have been changed so that the infamous HGT-2-stroke-penalty is now the HGT-1-stroke-penalty. And now we travel not so far "Down-The-Road", headed for The Hunt at Essex County Country Club, where the fairways roll, and we may not be playing “the blues” (we’ll just be singing them). Your servant reporter will see you all there!

Thursday, May 24^th, 2007: The “Hunt” at Essex County CC:

It was a beehive of industry, an anthill of action, a veritable time-and-motion engineer’s dream. This reporter was most impressed at the efficiency with which the numerous workers at Essex County Country Club shuttled the landed gentry from bag-drop to lunch, via the Ping/Callaway cowboy’s demo-day on the range, and onto the first tee…maximizing the revenue from guests and members alike. Ah, if only Old Tom Morris could have been with me under the baking sun this past Thursday May 24^th on the rolling and pleasant green land that presents itself as the Oldest Country Club in the nation.

There were, however, no proud polo horses or re-jacketed fox-hunters that typified the early days of this historic Club. These had long since been replaced by the plastic scraping of soft-spiked golf shoes and the sun-kissed flash of fairway irons and hybrids being prepared for action on the gently left-winding first hole. The call was for sun-block with at least a 75 SPF blocking power, and copious intake of liquid – Poland Spring and Gatorade would have a boost to their stock price today.

Golf lore at Essex “East” has it that Seth Raynor was preparing to convert his architectural design when he received that call to the great first tee in the sky, leaving his protégé, “Steamshovel” Banks to literally move the mountain to create these 18 raised greens. Our intrepid band of Tour players were joined today by three nefarious individuals who shall remain nameless (James Michalski, Bill Dunn and William Finn), who pinch-clubbed for five shameful members who dropped out and would be named if this reporter had sufficient ink in his quill.

Our outdoor-patio lunch fare was made all the better for three greens mowers, two edging-machine-toting crew, and one hose-wielding bush-sprayer. We were truly getting a taste of Essex County. From our sociably large table d’haut-cuisine, we looked down on kindred spirits toiling up 18, as well as out over two half-way females hitting off the 10^th and over the hill. Doglegs were again the order of the day, but fortunately not from the menu.

Mike Giunta whose game last week was obviously affected by his late arrival, was this day in the right gear with, as we all were to find out after the tournament, a leave-no-shot-out-there attitude. He was focused, as he adjusted his glasses, with Ladbrokes listing him as the quiet outside bet on which surely the smart money was riding. Meanwhile, Chris Marbaix was wincing at the Committee’s two-stroke cut in his handicap having netted sub-par at our last event in the suburbs of Union County, but was gracious enough to bring the trophy he so capably won last week (he had apparently eaten his nuts!). James Putman was ruing having chosen a dark blue Tour golf-shirt as today’s heat was sure to get to his emaciated frame (and judging by his back-nine, this reporter would say he ran out of gas in the trees right of number 12).

The Committee announced during lunch (literally while a wad of burger was in mid-mastication) that the “skill” prizes this week would be both a “Longest Drive” and a “Closest-to-the-Pin” and would both come up on the front-nine (before any of the players would be prostrate from heat exhaustion) in order to break up the lock Nick “MoneyMan” Johnson had on the Pro-Shop extras at Suburban (alas the trick was unsuccessful as Nick, who’d not hit a fairway until the LongDrive money hole, stepped up and crushed one 322 screaming yards directly into a 3-club headwind). Indeed, Nick was highwayman-robbed of the CTTP money on the uphill 9^th when his 6-iron landed 15’ from the hole, but Chris Marbaix muscled a 7 to 8’8” and we appear to have a rivalry.

Our fearless group played off the Blue Tees this day, at a hair over 6,600 yards (that would be a five yard wide hair!). The greens were perfect, particularly in comparison to Montclair and Suburban. The rough was lush, and there were a few blind drives (one over a two-lane highway). The paparazzi flashed, Chris hit his tee-shot 21 ½ feet off the first tee and the game was on. Mike pounded his driver well down the fairway, and so the rest of the group was warned…he was not to be denied this day.

While the Committee had adjusted the Rule viz the penalty for lost ball (from 2 to 1 stroke), this was not a moment too soon given the US Open level depth and thickness of the off-fairway shag carpet. This reporter has not seen such difficult conditions since Winged Foot – it was surely a day to keep it on the short stuff. Mr. Consistency who’d carded net-69 last week followed it up with a net-83 and lobbied hard for a return to his more comfortable handicap of his winning week. Granted to the man who was playing golf on his wedding anniversary – that is dedication (tinged with reckless endangerment). Even the perfect father James, during post-game drinks on the now quiet patio, thought he was supposed to be picking up his daughters, but wasn’t convinced he knew where they were. This reporter’s eyes get misty when he hears of such commitment to the Historic Golf Tour^®<