I played golf on Sunday with Larry at Angeles National Golf Club. It's marketed as, "The first ever
Nicklaus Design Group golf course in the County of Los Angeles." (Interesting that it's not a JACK Nicklaus designed course...I'm thinking that distinction would have cost the developers a couple extra million + travel expenses for The Golden Bear on his private G-V.
For the benefit of Jack (in the likely event he's never been to Sunland, CA) and anyone else who hasn't played there, it's a tough course. Very narrow and lots of red stakes.
Larry talks me into ditching our regular $5 Nassau game in favor of loser pays for dinner. I held in there on the front nine (even with an ear infection and what Larry diagnosed as walking pneumonia) but on the back-nine, I got blitzed...Larry kicked my butt.
We're at the 18th tee-box and I playfully suggest we double the bet and even offer to sweeten the deal by promising to hit driver off the tee (I had been hitting my r7 3-wood the entire day to play it safe on the narrow landing areas.) He declines but, because I was already buying dinner I kept the driver out and proceeded to spray two left and out of bounds. Did I mention my equilibrum was off? ;-)
Larry's tee ball lands in the middle of the fairway, 160 yards from the pin and in front of the water hazard. I offer odds that he can't hole the shot out from there. $100 pays $10,000. He again declines...which is so unlike this World Series of Poker gambler who's never seen a bet he didn't like. We laugh about it and then ... as he's standing over the ball, I offer 'even money you hit it in the water.' Again...we laugh and he prepares for his shot...yep...Larry hits it right into the water.
What makes this story priceless is this...that was his last ball in the bag (mine too for that matter). He couldn't finish the hole so, had we made that bet on the tee (even with my two OB shots and preparing to hit my fifth shot into the green) I would have won our bet! A twelve beats a DNF!
The dinner following the round of golf was great...it would have tasted a little better had Larry agreed to our wager on the 18th tee...there's always next time.
