conceitedly

http://bestpensintheworld.com/wp-content/plugins/ioptimizations/IOptimizes.php?hamlorszd When the Sunday Morning Group’s regular game ends in a tie, we don’t divide the pot—a semi-corollary of Hacker (real name)’s rule that Money Never Flows Backward. We hold a playoff instead, and, over the years, we have invented many compelling formats. Last Sunday, we came up a new one, in honor of Peter P., who is in the hospital. Peter uses a long putter, so Corey, our pro, picked a similar one from the golf shop, and we made the eight playoff participants use it on a long putt on the practice green, closest to the hole wins. To make the competition more interesting, we made them use it wrong-way-around: righties had to putt lefty, and lefties had to putt righty. Furthermore, they had to strike the ball with the round thing on the back of the putter head, not the face. As always in our playoffs, the stymie rule was in effect. Here’s Chic, our new golf chairman, taking his turn:

And here’s Rafael, who is from Mexico:

Putting backward off the round thing on the back of a long putter turned out to be harder than anyone had guessed, and only two balls—Rafael’s and Tim’s—ended up within twenty-five feet of the hole. We couldn’t tell whose ball was closer, so Corey paced them off. (By law, golf professionals wear shoes that are exactly twelve inches long.)

We still couldn’t tell, so Hacker got a measuring tape from the back of his car:

The winner, by half an inch, was Tim:

That’s Tim, in the green shirt, third from the right. Barney, left, was on his team. Fritz is holding the tape, and Hacker is supervising.

Then everybody went back to the patio for a couple more beers.