On a golf pilgrimage to Pinehurst, North
Carolina, you stand with feet shoulder-width apart,
waggling a 9-iron and summoning your powers of concentration for the tender
little chip you’ve come all this way to play.
But you put too harsh a swing on
it and send the ball high and off-line. It hits a fireplace mantle, ricochets
through a crowded bar and shatters a framed picture on the wall. Gasps give way
to uproarious laughter, and the “Chipping Board”—that rowdy parlor game known so
fondly to loyal patrons of the Pine Crest Inn—gains yet another measure of
fame.
Me, I’m the older and wiser
pilgrim welded to his barstool and confining his golf mishaps to Pinehurst’s
outdoor venues numbered 1 through 8 (particularly old No. 2, which on this
particular afternoon has taken the measure of me). Not to say I don’t feel
tempted at times to try chipping a golf ball through that foot-wide opening in a
wooden board set in the fireplace eight feet away. Everyone from frat boys to
tour players to golf widows to movie stars has taken a shot at the Chipping
Board since Pinehurst golf pro Lionel Callaway (inventor of the handicapping
system of the same name) introduced the popular diversion a quarter of a century
ago.
Ben Crenshaw once chipped 10 balls
in a row through the opening, gaining Pine Crest immortality for something other
than his velvety putting touch. The ape who actually hit the pinball shot
described above nearly KO’d longtime piano player Clarence Levine with it.
Clarence was midway through “Taking a Chance on Love” and managed to duck his
head in the nick of time.
“You ever try that?” the guy one
barstool over inquires.
“Enough to realize I couldn’t do
it very well,” I tell him. And for that reason I am content to simply watch
others make pleasant golfing fools of themselves on a rowdy Friday night here at
the Pine Crest.
He smiles and cranes his neck in a
few directions. “This place is a party with four walls around it. Wonder what
it’s like to actually stay here.”
“Fabulous. An experience not to be
missed,” I assure him. “It’s like stepping back 50 years and staying over at
your grandmother’s house. I sleep like a baby at the Pine Crest—do some of my
best work here, too, come to think of it.”
Work as in—what? Hedge trimming?
Ghostbusting? I confess to my new drinking buddy that I’m a golf writer hiding
out from his editor and the world at large. The Pine Crest, I tell him, has a
long tradition of golf scribes bellying up to its bar. Dan Jenkins, Dick Taylor,
Bob Drum and Charles Price have been devoted habitués of the Pine Crest Bar. So,
in his time, was my personal hero, Henry Longhurst. I’ve been doing my part to
uphold the tradition.
