18 Shots of Whiskey

I played golf with Fred Flintstone on Saturday at Wildfire Golf Club at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix. We played the Faldo course. The Faldo course is 6,846 yards from the tournament tees with a course rating of 71.6 and a slope rating of 127. The weather was in the low 90s. On the driving range, Fred was working on his low boring shots for windy conditions (Fred is boring also but this refers to a shot that is hit low and cuts through the wind). I was obliviously hitting my normal high fade. I enjoy playing with Fred because he is a shot maker. He has a great short game and makes some incredible par saves around the green.

The course was full and we waited to be called for our tee time. We chipped and putted and sat in our golf cart and chatted. The starter came over and talked with the twosome in the cart in front of us and he sent them off to the first tee. We continued to wait. Finally, someone realized that we were waiting to be called to the first tee and sent us off as a twosome. The fairways were completely scalped so that the winter rye grass did not compete with the summer bermuda grass for water and the fairways and greens had been aerated (and the greens sanded) earlier in the week. If I had known that the course was being aerated I probably would have chosen to play another golf course this weekend, but the aeration information was on the course website so it was my mistake. I probably should have realized something was amiss when the daily fee was less than $30 this weekend instead of the normal $75.

Play was excruciatingly slow. We waited on each shot but there was no one behind us so we worked on our bunker play, chipping and putting after we completed a hole and while we waited for the group to clear in front of us. That type of practice is really good for me. By the time we made the turn to the back 9, the wind starting kicking up and blowing pretty strong. I shot a 44 on the front 9 and Fred had a 41. Fred was hooking his driver and irons, but miraculously made some great saves around the green. On the back 9, I started bogey-bogey-bogey and Fred started bogey-birdie-double bogey on the first 3 holes. When we got to the 13th hole, we were over 3 hours into the round and the group in front of us was waiting again on the tee and there was a foursome in the fairway and a foursome on the green. Fred and I looked at one another and decided to head for the clubhouse. We tried to squeeze in and play the last two or three holes, but it was wall-to-wall golfers and we gave up. When we got to the parking lot, we got a very short sun shower to end the round.

Golf lore has it that a golf course has 18 holes because two Scots discovered it took 18 drams to equal a fifth of whiskey and they drank one dram per hole. Fred is one of those people that believes that golf would be perfect if it were 15 holes instead of 18. He is one of the few people with whom I have played anywhere from 13 to 18 holes. If Fred was a Scottish shepherd in the 12th century knocking stones into rabbit holes on the current site of the Old Course at St Andrews, modern golf would only be 15 holes because Fred would have left 3 shots for lunch after the round or saved the 3 shots for his wife Wilma, or he would have put a 2 1/2 time limit on the game.