Coping at the Country Club

On his best day Tiger Woods could not break par here at the Rancho Clear Creeko Golf Course and Country Club. This is a moot point since our membership committee won't allow Tiger on the course. We have a strict colored policy.
No matter how coordinated the clothing colors are, anything bearing promotional sports equipment logos is forbidden. Segregated colors, such as all-denim or all-kevlar are okay. And both provide better protection against chaparral than those eye-blinding double knits ever will.
Matched sets of clubs aren't outlawed, but they are impractical. A sparkling set of niblicks, mashies, spoons, cleeks, flanges, spanners, and wedges wouldn't stay that way for long with all the boulders and debris on the fairways here. Mashies soon look exactly like their name sounds.
Instead of the usual 14 regulation clubs, most players opt for a cheap thrift store 7 or 9 iron and a putter. The rest of the space in the golf bag is needed for a compass, flares, insect repellant, snake bite kit, safety glasses, small chain saw. And extra balls -- lots of 'em!
Losing one's balls is a fact of life on this course. The hilly, heavily wooded terrain rarely permits a player to see where his shot lands. And we're talking about the fairways! Balls occasionally disappear from the relatively flat, totally grassless putting surfaces we laughingly call greens. Don't ask us about the rough. Call 911.
The Rancho Clear Creeko course is laid out on an L-shaped parcel of land. In golf terms, it is an extreme dogleg to either the left or right, depending on your disorientation at the moment. More than one contestant has been heard to mutter, as he thrashed about in a field of mountain misery, "Where in the L am I?"
Mercifully, the course is only three holes long. In theory one could play six rounds to get in the traditional 18 holes. But one round usually packs in as many strokes of the non-cardiac kind as any "regulation" course. Par on each hole is 24 strokes, for a total of 72. The terms "birdie," "bogey," and "eagle" are meaningless. On this course, "ace" always refers to the bandage.
Here at Rancho Clear Creeko GC & CC we have unisex teeing areas. One sighs fits all. Half way through the first hole sex will be the farthest thing from your mind, as survival instincts and unwritten will codicils begin to dominate your thoughts.
The first hole is 2,725 yards long, a sharp dogleg to the left beginning about 1,400 yards out. Tee and green are at the same elevation, but along the fairway several altitude swings of ± 200 feet are encountered.
Cutting corners through the dogleg shortens the length of the hole to 1,950 yards, in theory. It's hard to reach the green in one shot with a bent 7 iron. This bold move usually brings into play formidable barbed wire fences, rock outcroppings loaded with rattlesnake dens, ant hills, hornet nests, and a passel of the neighbor's guard dogs.
The second hole is only 75 yards long, but every one of those yards is vertical. Straight up a granite cliff face. The hole itself is an Amerind artifact -- a depression in the granite slab left by Indians who ground acorns into paste centuries ago. By the time I hole-out here, my own body is doing a close approximation of an extinct relic.
The third hole is really a repeat, in reverse, of the first hole. A 2,725 dogleg, to the right this time. Most players who opted for the short cut on hole #1 take the long route this time. Barking and rattling can still be heard in the wooded hollows below. As well as the screams from the next foursome back. Then there is that pesky residual bleeding and all the unexplained swelling.
We don't use scorecards here at Rancho Clear Creeko GC & CC. Each shot is harrowing enough to be permanently burned into the players memory. As they recuperate on the third and final green one of our local New Age seance guides conducts the tattered linksters on a sort of "Past Hour's Regression" in search of their "inner hacker," while the resident paramedic charts the volatility of their blood pressure reading. Anyone who makes it through an entire round without spiking completely off the chart has had a respectable round.
So swing on by when you are in the neighborhood for a spot of tee. If you are game, that is.
And if you have the balls.