Well, that was Windy's tactful method of introducing himself. Is it any
wonder that we asked questions of the membership committee? No
out-and-out complaints, you understand. We just wanted to know where
Windy came from and how he got in and who was to blame for it. Most of
the information was furnished by Cupid Cutts.
Cupid is pretty nearly the whole thing at our club. In every golf club
there is one man who does the lion's share of the work and gets nothing
but abuse and criticism for it, and Cupid is our golfing wheel horse, as
you might say. He is a member of the board of directors, a member of the
house committee, chairman of the greens committee, and the Big Stick on
the membership committee. He is also the official handicapper, which is
a mighty good thing to bear in mind when you play against him. I have
known Cupid to cut a man's handicap six strokes for beating him three
ways on a ball-ball-ball Nassau.
Cutts is no Chick Evans, or anything like that, but, considering his
physical limitations, he is a remarkable golfer and steady as an
eight-day clock. He is so fat that he can't take a full-arm swing to
save his life, but his little half-shot pops the ball straight down the
middle of the course every time, and he plays to his handicap with a
persistency that has broken many a youngster's heart. Straight on the
pin all the time--that's his game, and whenever he's within a hundred
yards of the cup he's liable to lay his ball dead.
There are lots of things I might tell you about Cupid Cutts--he's a sort
of social Who's Who in white flannels and an obesity belt, and an
authority on scandal and gossip, past and present--but the long and
short of it is that it would be hard to get on without him, even harder
than it is to get on with him. Well, we asked Cupid about Windy Wilkins,
and Cupid went to the bat immediately.
"Absolutely all right, fellows, oh, absolutely! A little rough, perhaps,
a diamond in the rough, but a good heart. And all kinds of money. He
won't play often enough to bother anybody."
That was where Cupid was wrong two ways. Windy played every day, rain or
shine, and he bothered everybody. He was just as noisy on the course as
he was in the locker room, and when he missed his putt on the
eighteenth green the fellows who were driving off at No. 1 had to wait
until he cooled down. And when he managed to hit his drive clean he
yelled like a Comanche and jumped up and down on the tee. He did all the
things that can't be done, and when we spoke to him kindly about golfing
etiquette he snorted and said he never had much use for red tape anyway
and thought it was out of place in sport.
He tramped around on the greens and bothered people who wanted to putt.
He talked and laughed when others were driving. He played out of his
turn. He drove into foursomes whenever he was held up for a minute, just
to let the players know that he was behind 'em.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account