Dollars And Sense

Many Local Links readers are fortunate. Not only fortunate that they have found their way here, this proverbial 19th hole, at which we on occasion gather to share a moment’s reflection on the fundamental and the frivolous, the essential and the esoteric, the earthy as well as the ethereal, the ephemeral and the eternal aspects of the game.

Locally, many golfers are also members. And as American Express once liked to remind us, “Membership has its privileges.”

To be “in” at a club is an opportunity to make a declaration about one’s devotion to the game (at least as much as it is an opportunity to write a hefty check). The former we are likely to speak of — of the latter we most likely demur.

Likely, but not always.

I recall one day receiving a phone call from a gentleman of my acquaintance, a member of both a prestigious local golf club, as well as member of the business stratosphere that supports the “higher end” of the East End; its white linen tablecloth restaurants, its golf clubs with unfailingly green, meticulously manicured links.

He proffered an invitation to join him, and another highly regarded, well-placed member of the club at which we would be playing, along with a fourth individual, also known to me, who happened not to be a member of these gentlemen’s social circle, and not a member of their golf club.

He was, however, being proposed for membership, and this round was to be his playing interview. Why I, a non-member, was being invited to complete this curious four ball, I am to this day not fully certain, although I suspect it may have had something to do with my professional familiarity with the basics of the sponsee’s business pursuits, which as were mine, were concerned with food.

But that was where the similarity ended. My business was to his as is, say, the local marijuana shop to the Colombian Cartel. We both dealt in food, but we simply weren’t in the same league.

It was a beautiful, mild spring day sometime around this time of year, when everyone’s seasons, golf and otherwise, are filled with the promise of fuller blooms to come. The warmup on the range went well; the usual making of excuses for mis-hits yet struck, and a bit of quiet boasting of how well it went only the other day.

Caddies were assigned, and without a care in the breezy Hamptons air, we were off from the first tee in pursuit of four balls, three of which had somehow found the fairway.

I knew both of the members to a certain degree, and as different as they were, I liked them both, the one a far better golfer than the other, both enormously successful in their business and social endeavors.

No money match was being played, as this is one of two conditions under which a playing interview may be conducted, the other being one in which teams are drawn and a wager is declared, usually a small one, the point more being to discern the applicant’s response to a little added pressure, and perhaps to obtain a glimpse of an individual’s relationship with money.

The front nine went along smoothly with good play remarked upon, poor shots receiving polite silences, mixed with occasional supportive white lies such as “good stroke” or “don’t know how that one stayed out.”

With nine holes pleasantly behind us and no one either in front or behind on the course to hurry us on our way, the notion of a quick lunch was “suggested,” and so we sat on the clubhouse patio, in the glorious afternoon sun, the whole of the course, in all its spring splendor falling away before us.

Lunch calls for food, and food has long been a distinguishing feature of club golf. Not quite as critical as the greenskeeper, the private club chef is now a key player in the club experience. Fresh greens in the kitchen are now held in near same esteem as fast greens on the course.

As it turned out, the applicant was an established expert in the field of things that did not grow on a golf course. The man knew his fruits and vegetables, as well as his land and sea creatures. His business required this of him and he was a master of his trade.

And so food conversation was a comfortable one for him, affording him ample opportunity to showcase his expertise, and as I am sure he believed, establish himself as a valuable addition to the membership roster.

Food, it can be noted, always comes with a price attached, and the cost of food made for lively contributions from our friend who, over the excellent lobster roll before him, held forth regarding the best times and the best places to trap the best lobsters at the best prices. (May and June, hard-shells from Maine for the culinarily curious here).

And it must have been some unconscious connection between lobsters and money and golf that led to the last remark I can recall our applicant making, which was this: “So, what would it actually cost to join a place like this?”

The birds stopped chipping, the breeze lay down, the blue tip fescue grasses paused their ceaseless afternoon sway-ings, and small woodland creatures froze in their tracks, as if at the sound of a much-feared predator.

As there was no shallow divot near the patio table into which one might dive for cover, I sat in the ensuing seemingly unending silence, until a warm spring breeze rose once again, reached our frost-covered glasses of iced tea, and set to melting the chill, both the one in the glass, and the one that had briefly frozen that pleasant afternoon.

Neither of the members was a professional golfer, but both were professionals at many things, and to my great relief the question was somehow simply allowed to drift off on the breeze. And just like that, we found ourselves on the 10th tee.

All was not lost that spring afternoon, as on the back nine, the candidate, seemingly unfazed by the lunchtime bogey, (I actually had him down for a double) chatted away comfortably, played within his abilities and finished up with hat-removed handshakes all around.

Somewhere around the 16th green, I was able to overcome the empathetic chagrin I had suffered on his behalf.

And he soon found himself a member of a nearby, and equally superlative golf club, proving perhaps two things.

One being that there is a club for everyone who seeks to be a member. And two, that practice perhaps does indeed improve performance.

Hit it close, putt once.