Are We There Yet?

September 17-23, 2018

By Jay Edwards

jedwards@dailydata.com

We continued through the maze of sweaty bodies at this year’s PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club in Town and Country, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis. I was with KM and three of her brothers, Uncle Dennis, Uncle Bob and Uncle Bill, as well as Uncle Bob’s wife, Lucky Lisa, queen of the slots and golf trip planner extraordinaire. After following Jordan Spieth to the seventh hole, we found a nice spot near the green, with some good shade and close to beer and hot dogs. We staked our claim on the rope, setting up our chairs just left of the cart path on the left side of the fairway. Lucky Lisa went on up by the green, to a prime spot but one without shade (see suffering sunburned shoulders).

It wasn’t long before we needed more beer and Uncle Bill volunteered to make the run for more of the $9 twelve-ounce cans.

When he got back, like an hour later, Uncle Dennis took a beer from him and said, “I think the guy sitting back there under the tree has your chair.”

Before I go on, a quick word about the chair in question. Uncle Dennis had gone and bought two of them, one for him and one for Uncle Bill, a few days before we left. The rest of us were using our chairs from the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah, which were blue and had a logo from the tournament. These generic chairs Uncle Dennis bought were a dark green camouflage pattern with a pouch behind the back. The pouch is important.

When hearing his chair had been swiped, Uncle Bill, being Uncle Bill, put everything down and walked quickly and deliberately toward what of course, was rightfully his, even though Uncle Dennis, technically, was the rightful owner.

I watched, and took a big bite of my hot dog.

“Sir, I believe you are sitting in my chair,” Uncle Bill told the sweaty squatter, who just looked up silently at Uncle Bill like he had just dropped out of the blimp.

So, he tried again, this time a bit more forcefully, “Come on man, you’re in my chair.”

Still nothing.

“Get out of my chair.”

Finally, a response. “This isn’t your chair.”

“Yes it is, I’ve been sitting there all day.”

“No, you haven’t.”

The action under the tree was accelerating much faster than the action inside the ropes, and attaining a small gallery of its own. Uncle Bill probably thought some of them were part of the the chair thief’s desperate gang, returning from looting and pillaging other parts of the course.

“BROTHERS!” Came Uncle Bill’s loud plea.

Uncle Bob didn’t hesitate and headed to the rescue. As for myself, while technically not related by blood, I supposed that “brother-in-law” qualified me to join the impending melee, so I took the last bite of my dog, grabbed another brew and followed Bob. As for the instigator of all of this, Uncle Dennis, he turned to watch Stewart Cink hit his approach. Dennis is the oldest, and his action, or non-action in this case, strongly reaffirmed his claim to be the wisest. I glanced back at him as I followed Uncle Bob, and swear I saw a growing grin. Ah, brothers.

We got to Uncle Bill’s side. He had also called for a marshal, citing from the Rules of Golf, Number 13 B (paragraph f): Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s golf chair.

Finally the man stood up and, holding the chair in front of him, said to Uncle Bill,  “Well, if this is your chair, tell me what’s in the pouch.” Without hesitation, Uncle Bill said, “A poncho.”

The adrenaline surged through me. We had him now! And I waited as he slowly opened it to reveal Uncle Bill’s rain gear, which, for some strange reason, looked like a bottle of water.

“This isn’t good,” I thought to myself, taking a few quiet steps back. Then, at the same moment, someone from the crowd says to Uncle Bill, “Hey, isn’t that your chair over there?”

All heads in the mini gallery turned at the same time, as if following a ball floating into a green. We all saw the same thing, a lone chair, which looked exactly like the one the man was still holding in front of Uncle Bill.

We stared quietly at the lonely chair sitting by itself some twenty feet away. The hushed silence at last was broken by someone who said, “Bet ya there’s a poncho in there.”