Back in the 80’s I owned a custom farming business in Central California and worked on a commission basis as a pest control advisor. As an advisor I was affiliated with a local farm chemical sales company.

Every year at about the end of the growing (busy) season several of the large farm chemical manufacturing companies joined forces and put on one heck o####olf tournament. It was known as the PPGA or “Poison Peddlers Golf Association”. The association would strike a deal with one of the exclusive private country clubs in the area and rent the facilities for a full day, so you were automatically assured of playing a really nice course. Every hole on the course had a sponsor and what that meant was that every hole either had a farthest off the tee contest, a closest to the pen (par threes) contest, or a longest putt contest, plus there were free refreshments of one sort or another but primarily they were watering holes. The prizes for winning one of the hole contests were things everyone would like to take home, so everyone would try to put forth their very best effort. The tournament format was four man best ball and the teams were set up on handicaps with one excellent golfer, two middle-of-the-road golfers, and one high handicapper. I didn’t play that much and consequently was the high handicapper. Each year the teams were made up by drawing names from each of the three handicap categories, so nine times out of ten you would be placed on a team with three people you probably didn’t know. Chemical company executives as well as many of the fieldmen (chemical sales people like me) in the San Joaquin Valley showed up to play. It got so popular that the organizers had to limit the entrants to 800. Now think about this… They had a shotgun start so each foursome was assigned a starting hole and with 200 teams there were at least three teams on each hole. Each of the long holes had one or two teams waiting to tee off, one on the fairway, and one on the green, while there would be a long wait on the par three holes. It certainly made for a long day of golf and adult beverages in the early autumn sun, let me tell you. After an early morning start it was late afternoon before you were done with 18 holes. Once the round was complete there would be an open bar and casino games going on in the clubhouse until dinner was ready and it got rip roarin’ by that time! The meal was usually a thick juicy bar-b-cued steak with salad, baked potato and dessert. You’d think the evening would be over after they got done handing out the tournament trophies, but not this tournament. The last thing on the agenda was one of the best drawings you’d ever want to be involved in as TVs, music systems, expensive golf clubs, gold watches and on and on were handed out, all for a $200 entry fee that was covered by the company I worked with. Man, it was a lot of fun and I was hooked. I went every year when I could make it work out.

This particular year the tournament was held on a Thursday and I was able to get one of my best friends, Randy, to take the place of another fieldman who couldn’t go at the last minute. Well we show up at the Belmont Country Club in Fresno and as we are registering and meeting our teammates I notice that a new feature had been added. They were taking win, place and show bets at $2 a pop. You could bet on any team you wanted. Well, I plunked down $6 on my team to win, place, and show. It made sense to me! I made the bets while the others were off to our assigned tee that just so happened to be number 10. My teammates that year were all from different areas and we didn’t know each other. One thing was certain, the low handicapper had a definite need to win and he made it clear. It was about that time that I noticed my other two teammates were nodding their heads in agreement. So here I am the lousiest golfer of the bunch and they’re all checkin’ me out while I’m trying to look confident. Now what a four man best ball means is that every teammate tees off and you then decide who had the best shot. The other three go pick up their wayward balls and gather at the best ball. Then all four take their next shot and follow the same best ball procedure until the first team member's ball finds the bottom of the cup. Being the questionable striker, I’m informed that I will take my strokes first without exception and I’m good with that. The reasoning is that if I happen to make a nice shot then the good golfers can let it hang out and really try to knock a good lick. So off we go. You can imagine that under this format, there are going to be some nice scores. It worked out that one of the guys I work with, Joe, is playing in the foursome immediately in front of ours and so there’s some good natured bantering going on between us. That guy is a pretty fair golfer and he knows I fall into the “duffer” category. It must have been about the seventh hole we were playing (number 16) when the first omen of things to come occurred. My teammates and I had been waiting on the fairway for Joe’s group to clear the green and when they did, as was our procedure, I stepped up to address the ball. My problem has always been that I try to hit the ball too hard and so I have to concentrate on maintaining a fluid motion and stroke through the ball, while not trying to “kill” it. To do this I use maybe one or two clubs longer than if I was trying to nail it. So here I am with a five iron instead of a seven, and I’m going to knock the ball about 140 yards straight on to the green. Well I guess I forgot about the fluid motion and stroke through the ball part as I unwound and hit it good. The ball is heading straight at the pen when I realized it was going to fly the green. Joe’s group had just arrived at the next tee where another team was waiting to tee off. That’s when my teammates and I started yelling “FORE!” It was about that same time that my ball hit a big metal trash can where all these guys were standing. You could hear the BOOM all around the area and everyone of them jumped like they’d been shot! The ball was suddenly rolling right back toward me. It had just enough momentum to crest the rise at the back of the green and slowly trickle down right next to the cup! You wouldn’t want to hear what these guys are yelling at me and then, to add insult to injury, I got to stroll up onto the green in front of them and tap the ball in for a birdie! I surely caught hell! We had a long wait on that tee and I went ahead and cracked open my second beer of the day and began analyzing my play to that point. I was feeling kinda confident. Why with the exception of that 5 iron shot, everything was going along pretty good and my teammates seemed to be pleased. We were doing all right!

The very next hole, our eighth and the seventeenth on the course, was about a 400 yard par 4. You teed off and it was another straight fairway to the green. After teeing off and selecting the best drive, I was once again first up to hit. Our drives hadn’t been that good and we still had about 200 yards to the green. So I’ve got my 3 wood out. I’m standing over the ball and studying where I want to knock it. Finally I hit the ball and for some reason it starts a big round house slice. Located about 50 yards away from the green, back towards the area I’d just hit from, was the back side of the clubhouse building, right of the fairway. That ball sliced right over to that building and ricocheted off the metal panel on the roof that hides the air conditioning units. POW! Everyone looks to see what made the noise. Wouldn’t you know it, I looked to see my ball bouncing along towards the green and it once again rolls quietly up near the pen!  Now Joe’s group is going bananas as they turned at the ricochet sound and watched the whole thing. I couldn’t believe it, there was no way! This time I had to really study the putt because it was a toughie. It was about 15 feet above the cup and the greens were fast. That second beer must have done the trick as I tapped the ball and it trickled its way right into the cup. Back to back birdies made in the most improbable way! Once again I was catching hell… Our low handicapper called us together as we waited on that tee and pointed out that we were having a very good round. We got par on our ninth hole (the eighteenth) and made our way over to the scoring table to turn in our front nine score where we found we were tied for second at that point. That’s when I asked my partners if they had placed a bet on our team. Not one of them had…

We continued on with our round and I mean these guys are serious! My game receded back to normal and yet I was able to contribute and we continued a very impressive round with three more birdies by the time we reached our eighteenth hole (number nine on the course). Now this hole is a dog leg right lined down both sides with great big, tall eucalyptus trees. It was a par 5 of around 500 yards. I’d had about five beers by this time and maybe one VO water and I was doing just fine on this warm afternoon, thank you very much. We tee off and have a decent drive of about 225 yards and a clear view to the green another 275 yards out. So I get up to make my second shot using that trusty 3 wood that I invariably slice the ball with. After careful consideration, I make sure this is no exception as the ball starts off just great flying low and then it slices off running under the row of trees on the right. My teammates had been imbibing adult beverages as well and every one of their shots went cockeyed… The low handicapper looks at each shot and pronounces mine as the best shot since it’s inbounds on the neighboring fairway and pretty close to the green as it had run a long way out there. I’m thinking “Okay, I guess I can run the ball under the trees and try to roll it onto the green because there is just no way on God’s green earth that I can knock the ball over those trees. My gosh, they were planted like a hedgerow and looked to be better than fifty feet tall. So here I am, about 120 yards from the green with these trees blocking the way. I pull out my 2 iron and walk over to the ball when the good golfer asks what I’m planning on doing. I run through my plan and tell him why. He says “No… You’re going to take your 9 iron and you’re going to knock the hell out of that ball and fly over the top of those trees and land it on the green!”

I tell him this is nothing but an impossibility, but he won’t listen. Okay… I go get the 9 and take a couple of practice swings all the while picturing the ball getting gobbled up by one of those trees. It’s about that time that I here someone yelling my name. I look down toward the veranda at the clubhouse and here’s Joe and his crew all yelling at me… They were telling anyone that would listen that we were having a darn good round and now everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch. Great! I just want to get it over with now. I step up and take a full swing and SHAZAAM! That ball took off and climbed right over the trees and settled within three feet of the pen while all those non-believers (me included) looked on! My teammates were all dancing around and shaking my hand. It was almost as wonderful as when I once again walked up onto the green and holed out my third birdie putt of the day! There was a big cheer from the clubhouse and then we found we were leading the tournament by two strokes…

It took another hour or so before all the teams had completed their rounds and then we found that our two stroke lead had held up! The news came as I was pocketing money over on the #### table, another drink in hand. After dinner and the trophy presentation (nice two foot tall trophy by the way…), I was once again called to the podium where I received over $600 as the only person to bet on our team to win. When I won this nice gold wrist watch in the drawing the catcalls were getting tiresome… 

This marked the beginning of one of the most unbelievable weekends in my life… There’s more to follow.

I hope everyone has this kind of experience sometime in their life!