When Irish Guys Are Smiling

There was widespread disappointment across LCCC when the club cancelled last Saturday's annual St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl, particularly from our many members of Irish descent who view the importance of celebrating St. Patty's as no less important than their need to periodically ingest oxygen.

Grand Marshalls - 2013 Greenville
Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade

While the communication from club management cited low member registration as the reason for cancelling the Crawl, The Hosel Rocket has uncovered the real story, obtained in a series of exclusive interviews with Tom Francis, Bill Crowley, and a member of the LCCC golf maintenance staff, Jose Canjoosee.

Per the schedule published by the club, the Pub Crawl was scheduled to commence in the golf maintenance shed adjacent to the #10 green, from where participants would walk (stagger) to a series of keg stations located at the Tennis Center, the Tom Thumb supermarket on MacArthur, Mike Jackson's home in The Lakes of Las Colinas, and finally back to the Golf Shop. Cold kegs of beeer had been staged at each location in preparation for the arrival of 194 thirsty LCCC members, all of whom were ready to get their Irish on.

According to Mr. Canjoosee, the unraveling of the Pub Crawl began approximately one hour before the 6:00 PM start time, when Tom Francis and Bill Crowley arrived at the golf maintenance shed for an impromptu "pre-party", along with a few inebriated Irish friends they'd met at the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade earlier that day. It's here where our story begins.

"As you know, Bill and I were named Grand Marshalls for this year's parade," said Francis. "We'd just arrived at the end of the parade route, and decided to stop into The Dubliner to give out the rest of our beads, sign some autographs, and enjoy a couple of pints. Before we could order our beers, this group of crazy guys approached our table, dressed up like leprechauns and drunk off their asses. One of them pinched Bill's cheeks, then complimented me on my snazzy St. Patty's day shorts. They said they were all friends of David Feherty, and had just flown in from Ireland. I said, 'well, in that case, pull up a chair!'"

"Which way to LCCC?"

Upon being asked by Crowley what brought them to America, one of the lads, Miles O'Toole, replied " a f*cking airplane - what else!?", at which point all the Irishmen fell out of their chairs, convulsing in gales of laughter on the bar room floor. Pausing only briefly to light a fart (which set an adjacent tablecloth on fire) and order another beer (some of which he used to douse the flames), O'Toole explained that he and his friends had come to Dallas on holiday, and were hoping to play some golf.

Imbued with several gallons of Guinness and the St. Patrick's Day spirit, and eager to show the visiting lads from Ireland a good time, Francis blurted out "Fantastic! You can play at our club! We even have a Pub Crawl scheduled for tonight, too! You can meet some of the guys, and we'll book a tee time for tomorrow. Let's take my car!!"

After strapping Crowley to the roof of the car to accommodate the rest of the group seated inside, Francis tore down Lower Greenville and made straight for LCCC. It was shortly thereafter that Canjoosee, who was purposefully raking a bunker on #10, heard the sound of squealing tires, and turned just in time to see Francis' SUV barrelling around the corner of the Golf Shop on two wheels, from where it sped past the Douglass Clock, narrowly missed the gazebo by the #1 tee, and went careening down the middle of #10 toward the maintenance shed, where the pre-party for the Pub Crawl was about to commence.

"I jumped into my Cooshman and drove back to the shed, muy rapido," said Canjoosee, who stopped briefly along the way to pick up two of Mr. Francis' hubcaps, 11 Scotty Cameron putters, a half dozen empty beer cans, several golf instruction books, several dozen unopened letters from Adam Scott, and a bunch of green beads, all of which had been ejected from the SUV as it hurtled down #10.

"When I got to the shed, I went into the bathroom to answer the call of nature, only to find something very strange going on in there," gasped Canjoosee.. "Dios mio! I think it scars me for life! Like that day I see Senor Allen playing golf in a dress! Ay, caramaba!"

Unbeknownst to Canjoosee, Francis, Crowley, or their new friends, they were all being watched by GM Ron Woolard, via a network of close circuit cameras he'd installed around the club. As an unfortunate aside, it was this same surveillance system that had led to the recent dismissal of LCCC's former course superintendent, where he was caught on video putting too much soap in the ball washer on #11 tee, causing him to exceed his maintenance budget for the month and prompt his dismissal.

As Woolard watched the pre-party unfold on the screen in front of him, it became evident that things were getting out of hand, leaving him no choice but to cancel the Pub Crawl before the rank and file membership arrived and was asked to partake in the lesser-known St. Patty's tradition depicted on the following video.  While ClubCorp initially filed a restraining order to suppress the video (citing internal HR policy), The Hosel Rocket was successful in obtaining the footage via the protections afforded our citizens through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Be advised, it is not for the faint of heart.

GHIN & Tonic

Handicaps have been updated effective 3/15/13. Please check the computer this week or http://www.ghin/ for your updated handicap index.

Better Ted Than Dead



WWTBD = What Would Ted Borek Do?

MIAMI, FL (UPI) - During his press conference prior to this week's Cadillac World Golf Championships at Doral, the world's #1 ranked player, Rory McIlroy, offered a lengthy and visibly sincere apology for his abrupt withdrawal in the middle of the second round of last week's Honda Classic.

Seven over par after eight holes and looking at another potential bogey or worse after his second shot on the par-5 18th landed in the water, McIlroy suddently withdrew from the tournament without finishing his ninth hole of the round. An hour later, he released a statement saying a sore wisdom tooth had made it impossible for him to continue, a claim that was met with some suspicion by the sporting press and dentists everywhere.

“Obviously I had a lot of time to think about it,” McIlroy said. “I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t the right thing to do. No matter how bad I was playing, I should have stayed out there and gutted it out, just like my good friend, Ted Borek. When I heard what happened to Teddy last week at Las Colinas, and how he gutted out the rest of his round, the shame was just too much to bear. I had to apologize."

The incident referenced by McIlroy occurred last Saturday at LCCC, where Borek had parked his push cart at the base of the hill on #13 before walking up the hill to the tee. In an exclusive interview with The Hosel Rocket, Tom Francis explains what happened next from his vantage point on the #13 green.

"I had a ten-foot putt for birdie, and had just lagged it to about eight feet. As I was preparing to rake it away for my par, all of a sudden I heard this clattering sound behind me, and turned around just in time to see Teddy's cart topple into the pond! Apparently he didn't set the hand brake, and a gust of wind blew it into the water. I didn't know whether to shit or go blind!"

Meanwhile, Borek was oblivious to what had just occurred below, the elevation of the #13 tee obscuring his view of the pond and his golf bag sinking below the surface. In a grand gesture of sportsmanship, your humble editor grabbed his camera phone and ran down the hill, snapping a few quick pictures of the submerged wreckage for posterity before hoisting it out of the water and leaving it on the shore to drain.

David Oliver, one of Borek's playing partners, provides some fascinating insight on the balance of the round. "Well, if that bag wasn't a mess, it was going to do until the mess got there. There was pond scum, used condoms, rusty fishing lures, empty beer cans, turtle shit, and all sorts of fish flopping out of every pocket on the bag. I figured the empty beer cans were in Ted's bag to begin with, but the rest of the stuff must have weighed about 100 pounds, especially with all that water in the bottom. Teddy did his best to dry it out, but it was impossible."

After emptying the pond out of his bag, Borek attempted to play on by wrapping a small towel around each hand before gripping the club. He soon discarded this method after being told by his playing partners that his flying towel follow through was reminiscent of a woman hanging wash on the line on a windy day, something Borek deemed a tad too effeminate. Deciding to forego the twin towel technique, he resorted to gripping the club as tightly as possible, but according the Oliver that proved ineffective as well.

"Every time Ted swung the club, all this water came spraying off the grip. It was kind of like being on The Maid of The Mist at Niagara Falls, or standing next to a big-ass sheep dog shaking himself off after a bath. We were all getting soaked just from playing with him, and it was amazing that he managed to finish his round. I think that little Mick could learn a thing or two about grinding from Teddy. There's no quit in him!"

And learn is apparently just what McIlroy did. After leaving the course to retire to the comfort of his hotel suite at The Breakers in Palm Beach, McIlroy flipped on The Golf Channel and caught the live footage of Borek coming in on #18, looking for all the world like a man who had decided to play golf inside a running car wash.

"I'd say it was a bit humbling," said the young Northern Irishman, sporting a new bracelet on his right wrist bearing the inscription WWTBD?  "Here I go dropping out of a bloody PGA event where I was defending champion, all because my fooking new goddam Tiger Woods-Nike-piece-of-shit-compared-to-a-ProV1-ball landed in the hazard. This bloke's entire bag ended up in the hazard, yet he kept playing with only $20 on the line. There's a powerful lesson here, and years from now I believe I'll credit Ted Borek for making me the great player I hope to become, once my Nike contract runs out and I go back to playing Titleist."