Golf Cart Show

This will be the only post I ever make about golfing…well, about Buick Masters…well about golf carts…or something.

When I sold Buicks, I was a member of the exclusive Buick Masters. It meant I was in the top percentage of Buick salesmen in the country. It didn’t make me any extra money, it didn’t get me a promotion, but it did allow me to attend special Buick Masters events.

And I went to one of those at the Silverado Country Club in Napa one day. I think there were three salesmen at my store, a manager, and Don McCullough, the dealer owner who went. We all met at the dealership in the morning and the manager and salesmen all drove down to Napa about 70 miles away together. Don drove his own car, of course.

I had recently stopped drinking but I still had those kinds of habits. You know, doing inappropriate things, cussing, hanging out with the wrong crowd. I was a drunk, but I was sober, sort of. All the others with me were still practicing drunks so we had a good time.

We had a big BBQ, great food, and an awards banquet on the patio of the country club. Silverado Country Club, I’m told, is one of the premier golf courses anywhere, they have major tournaments there and Tom Watson lived right on the course. I didn’t know who Tom Watson was but was suitably impressed with the huge mansion that was pointed out to me as being where he lived.

It was swanky. And during the festivities, I was lucky enough to win a drawing and the prize was a brand new big screen TV. That was back in the old days, those huge suckers weighed forty-thousand pounds and cost thousands of dollars, but I won it. I was the star of our dealership, and Don McCullough was oh so proud.

After lunch, my good buddy, Bob and I went adventuring around the golf course. He was drunk, I was just bad. We ran across a golf cart all alone, no one around so we did what anyone would do, (well, anyone who is “bad”) we stole it. And Bob drove it into the lake that was right there. I don’t know if he did it on purpose or just couldn’t figure out how to stop it. But he went a fair way into the water before it died.

Of course, I was curious if my driving skills might be better than Bob’s so I found an empty cart hanging out and I stole it. And I raced it as fast as it would go straight into the lake and far surpassed Bob’s mark in the water. The game was on. I don’t know how many carts we actually sunk, but it was a few before the security guys captured us.

When we got back to our group, the management of the golf course demanded their pound of flesh. The Buick guys apologized, probably offered to fund the next three tournaments and assured The Silverado guys that Bob and I would be dealt with severely.

They made us leave the party. Since we all rode down in the same car, Bob and I were directed by Don himself to sit in the parking lot until the party was over. It was a long day, no more food, no more drinks for Bob, and no clear idea who had won our contest.

The next morning at work, Don himself came into our sales meeting and congratulated us for our awards, then pointed out Bob and my escapades so everyone would know what fuck ups we were, and he confiscated my TV, put it in his office, and I only got to visit it when I had to go see Don in his office. I didn’t go often.