Footprints in the Sand (trap)
By Jock | June 9, 2008
Category: Dr. Chet Stephens
Growing up I was a caddie at Merion, an exclusive golf club in the Philadelphia area. Single caddies made $20 a bag when I started, which, for a 12-year-old, was a fortune. We showed up at dawn and waited until 2 pm for our loops, playing cards or telling stories to pass the time.
Because we were at the bottom of the “food chain”, the loops we got were always with the cheapest and most despotic old men, the kind who’d lecture you on how to rake a bunker for 15 minutes, then make you do it over and over again until you got it right. This poem came to me fully formed as I was bitterly re-raking one of the 10,000 bunkers I’ve raked in my life (I still remember it, it was the 15th at Merion, in the right greenside bunker). I scribbled it on a scorecard as I walked ahead up the next fairway.
“What’s that shitty grin on your face?” the golfer asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing, sir,” he corrected.
Lord knows what happened to that guy, for all I know he’s dead. But anyway this one’s for him (if they have the internet in Hell), and for all the Jocks out there busting their ass in 95 degree heat trying to earn a buck.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:04 am
trust me, you have to work pretty damn hard to make me laugh about anything involving golf - i mean really hard - but that one got me good.
very clever.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:18 am
that footprints in the sand poem was way overdue for a bitch slap. well done, sir.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:36 am
They should put a similar poem up in the Phillies broadcasting booth, except starting with 3, maybe 4 sets of footprints, and Harry K carrying them all by the 7th inning.
and one in the Comcast booth at the Wachovia with Jim Jackson carrying Coatesy’s drunk mumbling corpse through Flyers broadcasts.
June 9th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
anyone who has ever looped has lived this scene at least 1,000,000 times. that old man is indeed in hell.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:53 am
Yup, that old man is down here. He is standing right next to me. And for the record, we do have the internet here, but no Corvettes.