One More Tribute To Arnie

            A number of years ago (in 1988, to be exact) Sports Illustrated ran a great piece by Rick Reilly (yes, that Rick Reilly, now employed by the four-letter behemoth – isn’t everybody? I wish)  about a publinx course near the Blue Hills of Massachusetts named Ponkapoag Golf Club in Canton, Mass., known to the regulars as “Ponky”.   The story featured the history of the course, the many characters who regularly played the course, and, naturally, the gambling that was an integral part of the experience.   

Ponkapoag Golf Club - Home of the Barkie

            The story was hilarious and enlightening.  One exceptionally humorous part of the story described some of the side bets the Ponky regulars had devised to accompany the standard golfing bets, such as the $1 Nassua.  Among most weekend hackers, one wins extra money for birdies, for example.  The Ponky regulars had come up with several hilarious variations on a theme.  One was a barkie, where you get the bonus for making a par on a hole after hitting a tree with a shot.  My favorite was the Arnie, named after The King himself.  You earned an Arnie for recording a par without hitting your ball in the fairway during the navigation of the hole.

            Tiger Woods, of all people, posted an Arnie in the second round of last year's PGA Championship, hitting his ball from tee to fairway trap to greenside bunker to green to hole. An Arnie might win some greenbacks at Ponky, but when that is the highlight of your day in a golf major, then your game has a long way to go.    

Men Only - Like Many Country Club Facilities!

            Of course, one of the standard side bets for any golfer is the sandie.  The sandie,  as you might imagine if you have ever squirmed your spikes into the soft (at private courses) or concrete-like (at most public courses) substance in the traps which line most courses, occurs when a player makes a par by getting down in two shots from a sand trap.  With apologies to Barry Manilow (it is only fitting that we parody a song written by a man that started his long, outstanding musical career playing piano in a public bath in NYC backing up Bette Midler.  In the 70s, that seemed completely normal.  Now, you couldn’t make stuff like that up), the following song is dedicated to those of you to whom a sandie is a fleeting, perhaps unexpected but nevertheless heartwarming companion.

SANDIE

(Mandy- Words and Music by Scott English and Richard Kerr; Publishers Morris Music Inc.; Screen Gems-Emi Music Inc.) 

I remember all my shots

Raining down as soft as ice

A shadow of a game

A ball through a window

Crying in my beer

The night goes into

Morning, just an awful game

My opponents have their way

Standing in the trap

I swing from memory

I never realized

How happy you made me, oh Sandie

Well you came and you sank no more raking

And I sent you away, oh Sandie

And you kissed me and stopped me from putting

And I need you today, oh Sandie

I'm standing with this wedge of mine

Swung  away when turn was mine

Shot up in a swirl, ball uphill climbing

The dirt is in my eyes

And nothing is dropping, oh Sandie

Well you came and you sank no more raking

And I sent you away, oh Sandie

And you kissed me and stopped me from putting

And I need you today, oh Sandie

Lessons are a dream

Now I face the music 

Buried in the sand 

The club is falling, oh Sandie

Well you came and you sank no more raking

And I sent you away, oh Sandie

And you kissed me and stopped me from putting

And I need you today, oh Sandie

********

            One postscript about Arnie. I grew up in the New York area, and have been fortunate to have been in a number of places over the years in New York and elsewhere in which celebrities have passed through on their way to here or there.   And I have read about people in such places giving an ovation to the star as he or she passed through.  But I have only actually witnessed it once.  One year my friends and I were in the Men’s Grill (Men Only!) in the clubhouse at Westchester Country Club during the Westchester Classic eating lunch.  There were about 30 or so members and perhaps even a touring pro in the room (Julius Boros would hang out in the Men’s Grill after his round was over on a regular basis)  and Arnie walked through on the way to his car.  Everyone dropped their food and drink and burst into applause.  And, as you might expect, the King, ever gracious, smiled and waved strenuously to his small cadre of fans on his way out the door.   Long Live the King!

AMDG

© R. E. Kelly 2012 -2021