By ED TRAVIS
We all know golf can be an expensive game. The cost of clubs, club membership, green fees not to mention clothes and shoes and travel and…well you get the idea.
I may hold the record for expensive golf rounds and I’m not referring to the new outfit my wife bought in the pro shop when we were caught in a sudden rainstorm nor ponying up to play Shadow Creek.
To set this up for you, I have travelled a lot in my life and as a seasoned flyer have the usual tales of delayed flights, bumpy landings and other scary happenings in the sky.
On one memorable trip from Orlando to Mobile, my clubs arrived just fine but my suitcase went to the Bahamas. However, the pro shop readily yielded shirts, slacks and shoes and I was on the course at the expense of the airline which I vowed to never patronize again.
And so you know my priorities were in order, not only did my clubs arrive just fine but since my laptop was in my carryon, business could move forward unimpeded. It took four days for my clothes to show up and I was ready to return home but not before purchasing a new suitcase for the expanded wardrobe.
Another instance of airline malfeasance occurred when I decided to take my brand-new clubs on a weeklong jaunt to the Midwest. The clubs arrived fine except the woods were each in two pieces—heads snapped off like it had been done on purpose. I learned, as have many other seasoned golf travelers, to not fly with your best set of clubs, nor bag nor shoes. Leave them at home and have a “travel set” to venture into the unfriendly skies.
Now I know these experiences are not that unusual and most likely many of you have suffered through similar happenings, but I know of no one who has ever had a golf trip that resulted in a layout of several tens of thousands of dollars over which they had no control.
True stories are always the best and in this case the names haven’t been changed to protect the innocent. Flying to Palm Springs from Orlando is a daylong ordeal usually involving a change of planes so by leaving early in the morning one can expect to arrive in time for the cocktail hour…and that is what I did.
My wife dropped me off at Orlando International and after too many cups of coffee and a sandwich in Dallas that was both overpriced and overage I arrived, gathered my clubs and suitcase and went outside to await my host.
As we all do at such times, I checked my cell phone for emails and text messages and there were lots but one caught my immediate attention. It was from my insurance company congratulating me on my new car.
A call to my wife revealed the story.
After dropping me off she swung by her favorite car dealership and while talking with a salesman we have known for years one thing led to another, and she drove home in a new car…it was silver. I wasn’t upset, just a little put out because my choice would have been blue.
