NO
My wife once worked at a
company in which the front-desk
receptionist was a recre- ational golfer who played occasionally—in her early 80s. She remained wonder- fully enthusiastic about the game, to the point where she still harbored dreams of making a hole-in-one. But she also fretted about the potential expense of an ace. She worried she couldn’t afford to buy drinks for everyone, so she dutifully kept hole-in-one insurance. My fi rst reaction: Gotta
love her optimism. And then: C’mon, we’re making little old ladies fear a hole-in-one?
This should be the ultimate convergence of unexpected triumph and unbridled joy on a golf course. One sweet swing, the ball soaring majesti- cally toward the fl agstick, a couple of obedient hops and then, blissfully, that white dot disappearing from sight. Pure magic. Just picture the other
golfers in your group of- fering exuberant high fi ves, snapping cell-phone photos . . .and chortling as they order vodka tonics. That’s just not right. If you make a hole-in-
one, you should get to choose who buys drinks for you. Maybe the dawdler who al- ways seems to play in front of you and takes six hours to complete his round. Maybe the 5th-grade teacher you never really liked. Maybe the buddy who never pays off his bets. That’s our motto here:
Make an ace, get payback. Golf has many alluring
traditions, but attaching the bar tab to a hole-in-one falls somewhere between illogi- cal and just plain dumb. It turns an ace into one of the few illustrious sporting feats in which the achievement is celebrated with the immor- tal words, “Congratulations! Cash or credit?” Consider the story
of Freeman Theriault, a 61-year-old trucking equip- ment broker in Phoenix. Theriault is a good-natured man who carries a 6 handi- cap and owns a gift for col- lecting holes-in-one—he has made 46. To repeat: The man has made 46 holes-in- one. That’s a lot of damn bar tabs. Theriault doesn’t
drink (isn’t that rich?) and estimates his expenses, on average, at about $75 per hole-in-one, or $3,450 in all. He doesn’t resent the money he has paid for post- ace cocktails over the years, but he also doesn’t think the tradition makes much sense. “If I make a perfect
shot,” Theriault said in a recent telephone interview, “I should be rewarded for it, not condemned.” Think about other
sports. Giants pitcher Jonathan Sanchez probably didn’t feel obligated to buy a round for his teammates when he threw a no-hitter (even if they helped the cause by playing defense). Basketball “tradition” didn’t call on Michael Jordan, after dropping 63 points on the Boston Celtics in an NBA playoff game, to stroll into the hotel bar and declare, “Drinks on me!”
The tab: $18,413.60. “How do you like that?”
Norman said as he stuffed the receipt into his pocket, according to newspaper stories at the time. In explaining why he kept the receipt, Norman said, “For tax purposes.” At least our misguided
little ritual leads to enter- taining anecdotes like this. And it spawned one memo- rable television commercial: the USGA spot in which a young boy makes a hole-
Golfers should look
forward to 19th-hole revelry after a hole-in-one. And if they’re cash-poor, are they supposed to bolt for the parking lot to avoid taking home a hefty bill? Let’s pause here to ap-
plaud Greg Norman, the Great White Shark. He’s anything but cash-poor, and he followed protocol after he made a hole-in-one on No. 8 at The Olympic Club during the Tour Champion- ship in October 1994. Nor- man bought drinks for every customer at the clubhouse bar the rest of the day.
in-one playing by himself. He looks around, worried nobody can verify his feat, when he spots the course groundskeeper, smiling. The kid then buys the
greenskeeper a soda from a nearby vending machine. Very cool. But the scene would be just as cool, and infi nitely fairer, if the greenskeeper bought the kid a soda. At the risk of getting too
philosophical, that’s the ulti- mate point—fairness. Golf is about integrity, policing yourself, mirroring real life more than other sports. In real life, you don’t win employee-of-the- month honors and celebrate by taking the boss to Ruth’s Chris. Tom Sneva, the Indianapolis 500 winner, understands. Soon after Sneva opened “The 500 Club” in Glendale, Ariz., Theriault showed up to play with some friends. Several golfers already had made holes-in- one on a fairly easy par-3 at the course, but Theriault
promptly aced No. 8, an in- fi nitely more diffi cult hole. He went into the bar
afterward fully prepared to buy drinks. Then Sneva showed up, excited to learn Theriault had con- quered No. 8—so Sneva bought drinks the rest of the night.
Ron Kroichick covers
golf for the San Francisco Chronicle. He remains ace-less, though he came tantalizingly close in April.
SUMMER 2011 /
NCGA.ORG / 21
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