Before we started, the goals for the year are to play a few events, get in the top 30 on the OOM to secure exempt status that I have this year after winning Q School. Seems achievable. Did you read that right ? After winning Q School……….mmm…….player.
First event is in Ballarat, get there a day or so early to play the course, it’s only 45 fucking degrees seems like the event is played in a fucking rain forest, fuck it’s humid.
Go out mapping yardages, green slopes and bumps and hollows. That takes until mid afternoon, then it’s so hot I can the bitumen melting and birds a falling from the sky.
Afternoon tee time, get drawn with Mike Harwood, 14th tee shotgun start. Fucked by the time I get there, dripping with sweat, bit nervous and excited to go. Shortish par 4 around a lake, flush 3 wood, oh yeah Shoot, you fucking player, keeps going through fairway and settles nicely under a tree. Get fucked.
I look at super caddy who over the past couple of days has become a beer monster, he looks at me, still drunk I think, shrugs his shoulders. Fuck me, now I not only have to manage my attitude but the fucking beer monster as well. Punch it on the green, make par. We are away.
Hole fucking nothing all day, as usual. At the first completed 9, I add up the card. I have had 4 over and Harwood is 3 under, fuck me how did that happen. Fucking caddy.
Finish with 78, 9 behind the leader Harwood. Walking back to the clubhouse he says “tough first day at the office hey rookie’’, politely as possible I say, yes. Hole a couple of putts the second day, make 6 birdies and 2 doubles for a little 71 to miss last money by 1. Fuck.
Move on to Yarrawonga, out to Black Bull for the first look at the joint, it’s cooled down a little to 39 fucking degrees, so glad I’m walking, chaffing the fuck out of my legs and ass cheeks, such a nice feeling. Beer Monster can’t stop telling me about everyone he knows here, everyone’s his friend, knows them all. I had to stop him be saying I couldn’t give a fuck, I think he cried a little. Almost dying of dehydration I stay in the hotel that night and The Monster goes to the function with all his alleged best mates from 30 years ago. Fucked if I know what time he gets back but at 4:30 I wake up for my morning tee time.
I shake him a couple of times, no response, I think he is dead, fuck, how am I going to explain that to the cleaners. I leave hotel get to the course, first on the range. Cart guy yells out as I walk across the road, “here comes the dew kickers” I pick up half a brick, throw it at him and say “that’s PGA Dew Kicker you fuck, have some respect” the bleeding stopped by lunchtime, fuck him.
Play pretty solid, 3 to play at -2 then bogey a par 5 from nowhere, double the next par 3 from the back trap and par the last, 73 isn’t usually too bad, this one hurts a bit. Fucking caddy shows up on the 11th hole of the day and says he slept in. Should have sacked the fucker. I reckon he picked up a granny from the pub. His percentage just got smaller.
Afternoon tee time second day, play pretty solid and end up shooting 70 to finish -1 for the event, now that’s better. As it turns out that was good enough for last money. $165.82 is the first chq as a Senior Tour PGA member. At least the fucking caddy showed up for the whole round this time.
Off to Yarrawonga Mulwala golf club for the next 2 rounder. No practice day, haven’t seen the place, beer monster has gone home, perhaps he had a rendezvous with the granny from a couple of days before, maybe he had to attend a AA meeting.
Wind blowing 30mph in the afternoon, had 39 putts for 81, fuck me what happened there, need to go straight to Woolies to get some powder and baby oil to try and stop my ass and legs chaffing, you fat fuck Shooter, stop eating the KFC. It’s like a bushfire, fuck me that’s not good.
Not much better the second day, tried to steer the driver between the rifle range thin fairways, not knowing where the holes go, bouncing it off Murray River red gums, fuck, don’t they love a golf ball, they are like catchers mits, golf balls get sucked into them. When you hit one, it never drops down either, it drops 80 yards away in the shit. Not my finest event.
So, missed cash by 1 in Ballarat, got a chq at Black Bull and was too busy busy putting out the fire in my pants at Yarrawonga, what an initiation, Tour life is a rollercoaster and tiring.
Bring on early March in Melbourne. We love this shit, the chaffing should be gone by then.
Tour player Shooter out.