Golf Girl Got Back
We know the BA Classic was ages ago but the story is timeless, so hail the return of Golf Girl. Check out the 07.07.05 Blog for Part1
First tournament moment: Erne Els, towering over me, signing my GP. First quote, “I’ll sign between her legs, how’s that?” Oh, Ernie.
But the interviews were fairly dull. Everyone’s knocking on the door, no one’s breaking through. Blah blah blah. I wandered about in the sun, having fairly forgotten that there was a major golf course outside. I hung at the practice range, admiring Jesper’s tourquoise pants and Ian’s burnt orange slacks and golden arm hair. Enough for day one, my news buddies told me tomorrow was the day to chat everyone up.
The next noon I staggered in late and hungover. What kind of journalist was I? Absolutely zero work ethic! Or… was I being a good golf punk? My night out worked in my favour, I had a ruffled look. Manny from Golf Weekly asked how my morning went. “I woke up in Baltimore, I blame it on the martini’s,” I responded and we were friends for life. “Oh, you must hang with us,” he said. “You’re fun. You’re golf punk!”
We had our first story. We hit the fairways in search of Frank Lickliter II’s Bag.
Frank Lickliter II is what they call a journeyman, always on the tour, not often a national champion, and cute for days. He walked up to me and gave me a “HI!” worthy of GG herself. I was smitten. And thought, but there’s nothing to do. He’s playing and then he’s gone. I’d have to ask the golf groupies how they handled that.
 
The golf groupies had already been sighted, in fact during the practice days they were in full blown come-get-some regalia. Short tight black dresses, high stacked heels and wedgies in the hot hot sun. I was in awe. It didn’t occur to me at first to approach them. I missed some key opportunities to delve into their brains.
Frank was collecting patches from each of four tournaments he was currently in and then he was going to auction the bag on E-Bay and donate the money to wounded warriors. We scampered down the fairway and found him, his blue eyes, and his bag. We got an interview for CNN, we got pictures for my scrapbook. And we felt very patriotic, helping Frank in his quest to sell his bag. I found out later it went for a quarter million, go Frank II.
Flush with success, we headed back to the putting green. This tended to be the action spot. Famous people lolled about, the groupies were a-plenty, and every old duffer looked like Coach. I wandered about with Mannie and his camera. We came upon a beautiful display of bright yellow state of the art YES! putters. “Let’s get some gear,” said Mannie and thus a bite-size quest was born. “Let’s offer him a GP article,” I suggested. And this became my first very own golf tournament story. For these were not just any putters -- these putters had the strength and technology to open a beer bottle!
A caddy from New York informed me of this fact. I had shown him a picture of a Bunker Babe wearing white booties and he was transformed. He immediately invited me to dinner, as though I too owned white booties. I was dubious about waking up with sand in my knickers. For Frank, maybe. But, better to focus on finding a beer and a photo worthy of GP.
I had to secure a beer quickly, before the YES! man to changed his mind. I hopped into the first golf cart I saw and directed the 100-year old driver to find me a beer stand. He happily zipped us about but to no avail, all the beer was gone for the day! This couldn’t be. A random man sitting near the clubhouse said, “Can I drive with you?” I said, “You can find me a beer.” He said, “Okay!” and led me into a room full of young men – the caddies’ locker room! He flagged the oldest one, obviously in charge, who looked at me suspiciously. Obviously, I must have a problem and he was tired. “My problem is I need a beer!” “Seriously?” he asked. “Yep! Got a putter that needs a beer to open!” They all stared, then acted. A cooler miraculously appeared with one fine English lager left in it. Yummy. I now had a trail of men following me back to the dance floor. An old geezer with a cart, a random helpful man, a tired senior caddy, and a strew of young caddies. Indeed, it was a grand day.
Words and Pictures by Dr Morgenthaler
Check out the 07.07.05 Blog for Part1
8/9/2005 9:21:47 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00) 
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