Grizzly plop golf, revisited

One of our Over the Hill Gang members, Ron Beard, is an architect engineer living in Washington D.C. but spends much time in the Flathead where family roots go deep. He also plays regular golf in West Glacier. At coffee last week we found Ron didn't know about my famous golf game with our late close friend, Dan Lundgren, 30 years ago.

This repeat is for old time's sake:

GOLF: "A game played on a large outdoor obstacle course having a series of nine or 18 holes spaced far apart, the object being to propel a small ball with the use of a club into each hole with as few strokes as possible."

"Obstacles" are hazards personified by the "rough." This is a jungle of thorns, poison ivy, wire brush, elephant grass, swamps, and quicksand which lines one or both sides of the so called "fairways." In the fairways we have "natural" hazards such as trees, rocks, lakes, streams, sand bunkers, wind, sleet, hail, fog and sometimes snow.

There are also "man made" hazards such as cart paths, sprinkler heads, size 12 ladies in size 8 shorts, golf carts, etc. Balls that land on these and other infrequent hazards can be "dropped" without a penalty stroke. You may remove dead "unattached" things like leaves, sticks, and pine cones from around your ball, providing you do not touch or move said ball.

This brief background was necessary so non-golfers can appreciate what I'm about to tell you.

Ground rules at the beautiful West Glacier Golf Course allow you to free drop out of elk and moose tracks because those are "unplayable lies," but this new thing has me troubled.

Locals know it has been a year of huge huckleberry crops at lower elevations, and this has drawn unusual numbers of grizzly bears to the West Glacier area. So! Saturday on that course, 200 yards out from the T on the first hole, there were two or three large piles of fresh grizzle poo poo. No trouble for Arnie or Jack, but that's about how far I drive, so my ball bounced into one of those purple mounds.

This was my annual match with Dan Lundgren who is normally a reasonable man. I seriously asked him what was the local rule for playing a ball under those unpleasant circumstances, and my friend said, "George, we play regulation golf here. You have to hit it out."

"You mean to tell me I don't get a free drop out of that odiferous mountain of recycled huckleberries? It isn't the money Dan, it's a matter of ... of ... common sense and decency."

If Dan was kidding, I couldn't tell, "No! You can play it just the same as you would from a sand trap. Use a pitching wedge, aim behind the ball and hit down and through. You know! The explosion shot."

"My friend, when you hit that shot from a bunker, sand flies all over the place; therefore if you use it from a pile of grizzly poo poo ... well ... it will just be a lot different."

There were 17 holes yet to play and I could see other suspicious mounds ahead. I wanted the issue settled. "Dan, we're only playin' for two bits a hole, and this isn't the British Open. Surely you wouldn't make anyone hit a ball out of that stuff ... would you? Besides, I'm wearing my new white Thunderbird golf shirt."

"I'm sorry George, but I didn't make the rules. You've played enough golf to know that if you start bending a rule here and making an exception there, pretty soon the game loses its most sacred aspect ... integrity."

"O.K. What if I get a stick and carefully remove a lot of that 'dead stuff' from around the ball?"

"Well, I suppose! But that would be a risky option. Also the course is fairly crowded today and we'd have to let a lot of people 'play through.' We might be late for the big dinner date with out wives."

Taking a one-stroke penalty by not playing my ball from the plop did cost me a quarter, but at least I didn't smell bad and my new Thunderbird golf shirt was still white.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.