Although we tried our best to avoid it, our Facebook newsfeeds have been bombarded by posts of “campus dialogues” to the point where we thought if we read just one, the others might go away. They did not. They multiplied like all the Sox fans coming out of the woodwork and it makes videos that show just how wrong Jim Joyce was again on a huge call in the biggest stage in baseball excruciatingly more difficult. We’re over it, just like Galarraga.
We realized, though, that there is a column that needs to be written. So, faithful fans, we’ll spare you our usual rundown. Instead, we are going to write about us playing sports against Division I athletes and losing badly. That was the exact column you thought we would write? Well, we heard that a line like that in an editorial gets you some airtime and if there is one thing we need, it’s a TV show. Thats right, the Legends want to go viral.
No, loyal readers (Mom and Dad), this column will not just recount that time we sat on the sidelines and hurled rocks at an organization because it had problems. Just lobbing criticisms would be no fun to read or write, they probably wouldn’t make the problems go away, and, after a while, they would probably all sound the same. They might also polarize you, our fan base and deter some honest discussions that need to happen amongst you all. About sports. Duh. Instead, Freddie and I are getting out there, we’re figuring out how hard these things can really be when you are on the field and that we are one community because athletes are not really that different from you and me. With the glaring exception that they can double my bench and half my 40 time. Whatever. To quote a hero of mine: “I am not trying to be the king of exercise.”
We also realized that if there was one thing that we needed to accomplish, it was the triathlon of country club sports. Squash: check. Tennis: check. That left just one: golf. So we took a page out of John Daly’s legendary book. For those of you who do not know Daly, he drank like a fish, smoked like a chimney, ate like a 13-year-old in Foco and recreationally balled on the golf course. We figured if Daly could do all that, I could play the sport after the customary post-midterm celebration on Thursday. So we texted men’s golf captain Joey Maziar ’14 late Thursday and issued our challenge in a text that was poorly phrased, rife with grammatical errors and a little too late for comfort. Oh well, he understood and responded with the most common question I get. “Dude, since when do you write for The D?” We took that as a yes. Game on.
In addition to living the Daly lifestyle (minus the relationship problems), our training was the same as every week. Play X-Box, go to class and just generally be Legends and do Legends stuff. We also reformulated our undiversified stock portfolios, because we are all about that alpha and are unsure what else you are supposed to talk about in golf except for returns.
The challenge was simple: two holes, best score wins. Freddie was unable to join me this week, so it looked like it was going to be a twosome. No matter. For those of you who missed this on Dartmouth Sports, I won the intramural golf championship two seasons back. Sure, it was probably in large part due to my partner, country club all-star and men’s squash captain Fletcher Pease ’14, but I still got the IM championship hat and that’s what counts.
Off the tee box, Joey drilled the ball right down the center in the short grass. It was alright: 250 to 260 yards, I guess. I got up there, took a few practice cuts and smashed one about 100 yards left and 15 yards forward. Rome wasn’t built in a day people, give me a break. After three or four more shots, I was right where he was anyway. Whatever, drive for show, putt for dough.
Well, unfortunately, Joey didn’t just get athlete of the week for his tee bombs, he got it because the kid doesn’t miss up close. What took me two chips and two putts was a quick chip and a putt for him. In golf, lowest score wins. Allegedly.
Down 0-1, nothing a Legend can’t recover from. After giving me a few pointers on my swing, Joey bombed another one and I stepped up and cracked one 15 yards left but 144 yards away. That’s called progress. The rest of the hole went pretty much as the previous one and it was nothing more than a good walk spoiled. Leaving the course, I said to myself what I said pretty much every other time I have played golf: “I am absolutely never doing this again.”
That puts us down 0-4-1: not a great start, but something that we are going to work to fix and not just complain about.
