The Ultimate Accolade...a little golf story

"Let's see...who is left...OK......I guess I'll take Jim. "

So concluded the process, honed over 15 years by the "St. Paul Crowd"...about 30 men overall who live mostly in the St. Paul area, a small town just off I-95 in Robeson County, NC ... and who play golf at Scothurst, a small family owned and run golf course just outside Lumber Bridge, a few miles from Raeford, every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday...to select foursomes that play as a team and as individuals for a money pot made up of eleven dollars from each player...often over $200.

It's a mystical ritual that has taken me several months to fathom. The best players act as self-selected captains. Each in turn, based on marked-balls drawn from a hat, in order, chooses teammates from the group which shows up for the game that particular day. Most of the time its about 20 men...five foursomes. And somehow the teams end up roughly balanced...certainly as well as if handicaps or some other elaborate scheme of equalization were employed.

I had just been chosen last by Johnny O, as I knew him, a retired master plumber, who had status as a 'captain' because he regularly shot in the 70s. Of course, this is a Scothurst, St. Paul 'Crowd'...a southern synonymm for group... sub 80 score: You can move the ball in the fairway a club length and sometimes even in the rough, if there's a man-made obstruction, which there often seems to be, plus, if a team already has two pars, say, then your par putt, not yet made, is conceded, even if its 25 feet away...so sub 80 rounds are 'accessible.'

Each team counts the two lowest scores of the four players on each hole toward the team score....broken between the front nine, the back nine, and overall. Individual players compete for lowest score on each hole...ties are
scratched...so usually, it requires a birdie on a difficult hole to win a 'rock'...the name given to a winning score on a hole. The winners of 'rocks' divide the other half of the pot. Sometimes a player will win $100...rarely... because normally several holes are not won by a low score achieved by only one golfer...but the possibility is there.

I started playing with the group after the owner of Scothurst ...in response to my question about whether there was anyone he could suggest that I might play with... pointed to the putting green and the group practicing there that was about to tee off at that very moment.

He said: "Talk to Claude."

I walked to the putting green, asked for Claude, had pointed out to me a 60-year-old gray-haired bald-headed man practicing his putting, and explained to him that I would like to play and would he and his friends consider taking in a stranger.

I offered a piece of information that I thought might make the difference between acceptance and rejection.

I said: "I live in Raeford for the moment. I normally live in Washington, DC, but I was born and raised in Wilmington"...a town about 100 miles from Raeford. In other words...I am a 'good old boy' really, although I may appear different and talk differently.

He looked at me for a minute and then welcomed me and turned and introduced me to several other players. I think that it was my potential contribution to the money pot rather than my hometown that prompted the invitation.

Claude said: "Hang on Jim...we're just in the process of picking teams."

So, as has occurred several times since then over the first several weeks, I
suffer humiliation... an emotion understood by anyone who, as a child, has been chosen last in a pickup game on a playground. Or as happened to me this first time, to actually have to raise my hand and say: "Uh, Claude..no one has chosen me yet."

Over time I've worked my way up the ladder of credibility. I'm not the last chosen now, but, then again, I've never yet been the first chosen.

The St. Paul crowd has another ritual it practices along with its scoring and team choosing schemes. Everyone uses carts to get around the course. After a good shot it's not unusual for your cart-mate, who would have pulled the cart up a sufficient distance away not to distract you, but close enough to make a quick pick up, to say: "Get in the Cart!"

It's said with an emphasis on the "Get." The exhortation is meant as a
compliment: you're playing so well that you deserve special treatment or you must hurry and get back to the cart and to the next shot before the magic is gone.

Recently I played in a foursome with Caviness Bradford. He is a black emergency room physician in Robeson County and he plays regularly in the St Paul crowd.

After I was first introduced to him and Elbert Haskins, my cart-mate, and I rode away toward the first tee, I said: "Caviness Bradford...a great name."

And "E" as he's known said: "Of course, that's his 'slave' name."

I was startled. I had heard that designation before, of course. And then I realized that E had concluded that I didn't know that many... most ....Africans brought to America as slaves were 'named' by their masters who frequently bestowed on their slaves their own first and last names. These names were passed on, of course, to the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren...down the line.

Dr. Bradford was given to using the ritual utterance "Get in the Cart!" with great enthusiasm. In fact, to me anyway, Caviness' "Get in the Cart" had the most style and rhythm of any. When he rapped it out, you really felt that you had done well.

Recently, I played with Caviness, as my cart-mate. I played poorly for the most of the round. Golf is such a cruel game. Just as you think you've got it down and your optimism rises, your hopes are dashed by a terrible shot or a terrible day. Today had been, so far, not a good day.

Our team, however, had survived my play, and, as we came to the last hole, the 18th, a par five, we still had a chance of winning the team pot. We calculated that we needed a couple of shots off our score to be competitive so two birdies would probably do it.

I hit a great drive for once. It looked as if it would be possible for me to reach the green on the next shot.

Caviness yelled over at me: "Get in the Cart!"

Mike, playing with us in the other cart, hit his drive far enough up toward the green that it was possible that he might "get there in two." So, off the tee, we still had a chance. Mike hit his second shot before I hit mine, and he was pin high, but off to the left side of the green...still, however, within birdie range.

I hit my second shot with my favorite 5 wood "on the second groove" and it flew high and landed softly on the green and rolled within 10' of the pin.

Caviness said: "Get in the Cart, Jimbo!"

We drove up to the green. I rallied everyone on the team to 'read' my putt to help me get the 'line'...it's allowed under St Paul Crowd Rules.

Mike pitched close and made his putt for a birdie.

I lined up my putt, stroked it, and in it went...an eagle. We had lowered our score by three shots on the 18th hole.

Caviness exploded: "Get in the Cart...Jimbo... M... F......"

I had received the ultimate accolade from the St Paul crowd.

NB: I realize that this story has an obvious 'ethic' element...its the black golfer who uses the M...F... language. However, the story is true, and it was Caviness that said the sequence of things to me that day and I'm not a racist. And it's really not unusual to hear the "M...F...expression" from anyone who plays with the St Paul crowd.