The Bag Room: Chapter One

“Many a golfer prefers a golf cart to a caddy because the cart cannot count, criticize or laugh” -Unknown

The first job of my life was the cause of what would become a horrible addiction that continues to consume me to this day. It takes all of my money, has caused me more pain than happiness, and I will do anything in my power to just get one more fix. The fact that “golf” is a four-letter word is likely no coincidence.

Driving through the south side of Alvarton, Illinois was far from enjoyable, and driving through Alvarton at 6:00am on a Saturday morning downright sucked.  Even after I turned 16, the drive still sucked.  You’d think I’d have gotten used to it by then.  I had taken the job as a caddy at Alvarton Country Club at the age of 13 as a means to stay busy on the weekends and to make a few extra bucks during the summer. The job continued to consume my summers three years later, when I was finally able to drive myself to work every morning instead of begging my mother or father to do it.  Socializing during the summer wasn’t exactly my favorite thing in the world, and my parents would constantly encourage me to “make something of myself” instead of "smoking the drugs and chasing the girls in town".  Both they and I knew that it would have been a miracle if a girl was found in my bedroom instead of a cigarette pack, so I usually took their remarks with a grain of salt.

My hometown of Alvarton was a city founded on the backs and the sweat of steel workers from a century ago. While I did not always enjoy living in the city, Alvarton had a certain way to grow on you… much like a fungus grows on something left out in the sun. Over time I came to love my hometown and the people who called me “neighbor”. When you were from Alvarton, people around you knew it; I often believed that the citizens even had a different accent than the rest of the state. The children and teenagers of Alvarton were a special group of kids. We all thought that nobody could possibly know how tough it was to live in our town, however none of us wanted to ever admit we were from Alvarton.  Alvarton had a certain negative mystery stigma with its neighbors. I was one of those teens the year I was introduced to the world of Alvarton Country Club.

Caddying had its perks at Alvarton C.C. The county club members usually tipped pretty well in addition to the normal fixed “looper” rates, and all employees were able to play for free on Mondays when the club was closed. The term “looper” was one that had never attempted to creep into my normal vocabulary prior to working at the country club; in fact, I had never heard the word before. I had been interested in golf from a rather early age thanks to my father and his friends, who would usually come by on the Sunday of a major to watch names like Norman, Lehman, or O’Meara grace the fairways of courses with the names of “Pebble”, “Carnoustie”, and “Augusta”.

The golf course was constructed in a traditional style of long, tree-lined fairways leading to tiny, well-guarded greens. The landscape of the course was a collection of hills, valleys, and elevation changes that appeared rather difficult to the rookie golfer; however, the course was actually easy to navigate once you became accustomed to it. The golf course maintenance crew took pride in the condition of the course and did everything it could to make Alvarton Country Club a “diamond in the rough” for the city; however, many citizens believed that the crew was simply making an awkward stretch of land more presentable. After all, covering a piece of crap with pomp and circumstance doesn’t take out the underlying stink.  In comparison to professional-grade golf courses, Alvarton C.C. looked more like a dog track than a golf course worthy of the title “country club”.

Alvarton Country Club – which was originally opened in 1930 under the name of Union Country Club – was by no means a terrible golf course; in fact, it was the best course in the city. However, golf wasn’t exactly the biggest sport in Alvarton in terms of popularity. High school football, baseball, and women’s softball were larger draws to the citizens while golfers were a distant sub-group of people. The neighborhood high schools and junior college all feature golf teams, however you would be hard-pressed to find any mention of these teams in the city’s newspaper. As such, Alvarton Country Club was more popular for people outside of the city limits since the club was less-expensive than other clubs in the area.

Pulling into the empty parking lot I passed the obscenely large boulder with an engraving that read “Home of Alvarton Country Club.”  It reminded me more of a grave marker than a welcome sign.  The parking lot was a scene that I had become all too familiar with over the past few summers. Employees were told to park towards the back of the lot to allow for members to use the more favorable spots near the clubhouse, but no one ever followed this rule. My 1984 Chevy Blazer was quite the sight to behold for a country club, especially with the stylish rust spots surrounding each wheel well and a back window sticker that read “To All You Virgins: Thanks For Nothing”(which was a lie in itself, of course, since I was still a virgin to begin with). The head golf professional – Paul Brewer – pulled me aside one day and asked “what the hell was wrong with me” for having the sticker in his lot and made me agree to back-in to a spot by a tree-lined fairway so the members’ precious eyes wouldn’t be subjected to such filth.

Alvarton’s parking lot expanded from the front of the clubhouse and pro shop and deep into the property, ultimately leading onto an old gravel road. Employees were asked to park in the far south corner of the lot to allow for the closer spaces to be used by the membership. After parking in a spot not far from the entrance of the club (screw you, Mr. Brewer) I grabbed my towel and Gatorade bottle, opened my car door and walked to the caddy shack roughly 300 yards away.

The shack was positioned just to the west of the 18^th hole’s greenside bunker off to the side of a small, grassy hill and looked like it had been built sometime in the 1930’s. From the layman’s viewpoint, the caddyshack looked more like a large wooden shed one might otherwise find in a neighbor’s lawn. There were two wooden benches underneath the shack’s wooden canopy, which rested on a 10x12 cement slab that had needed to be re-poured since last decade.  Beside the benches were an old Pepsi vending machine that had never worked and a water bucket the caddies could use to keep their towels wet. Any decent caddy will keep half of his towel damp for the purpose of cleaning his player’s clubs and golf ball during the round.  During my first loop for a member at the club I had neglected to remember this simple rule of caddy etiquette, which resulted in a very unhappy golfer with dirty clubs and an even unhappier (and unpaid) rookie caddy. Lesson learned. Finally, a telephone was located on the south wall of the shack which would serve as our notification when we were assigned to a golfer for the day.

The caddy program at Alvarton was started shortly after its opening. Neighborhood children would serve as caddies year after year, many of which eventually became rather decent and moved on to other country clubs and golf courses in the state. Alvarton was also a member of the Western Golf Association, which instituted an Evan’s Scholarship program. Caddies could apply and potentially receive a free-ride to a participating college or university. Over time, however, this program became less popular and fewer children became interested in this area of summer employment. Regardless, a few of the members at the club preferred to use caddies during their round and often paid their “loopers” rather handsomely.

Inside the caddy shack was a contraption that looked like a medieval torture device, complete with a large metal wheel, a steel water basin and an old rubber belt. This was the driving range ball washer, and it was the bane of every employee’s existence.  The smells and sounds that would come out of this machine were beyond horrible, and heaven-forbid if any of the dirty water splashed on any part of your clothing. For a nerdy 16 year-old virgin like me, a hearty sprits of “Butthole Sewage No. 5” wasn’t exactly going to help with the ladies. Regardless, the caddies would sometimes be asked to help clean the range balls in the morning, especially when the lazy bag room attendants forgot to do so the night before.

Alvarton’s bag room was something of legend among the club employees. In other businesses that include a restaurant, the restaurant’s kitchen is always the brain of the operation.  However this was not entirely the case at the country club. The waiters run the asylum from the foodservice angle, but Alvarton’s bag room employees were like waiters on crack (and in some cases, literally on crack) in terms of who could make or break a good or bad day for the customer. Furthermore, the bag room attendants and caddies had been locked in an ongoing war since the early days of Alvarton C.C. that would rival any story from a Hatfield or a McCoy.

The bag room was located in the basement/garage area of the massive golf course clubhouse and – like the room’s name implies – served as a storage unit for the members of the country club’s golf bags. Each bag was assigned a specific slot on a sliding shelving unit which the bag room employees would push back and forth throughout the day as new golfers arrived. Each two-tiered shelving unit was comprised of lettered rows and numbered slots that would keep the roughly 300 golf bags organized in an easily-accessible manner.  These large racks were essentially wooden shelving units equipped with rollers on the base that slid along a metal track installed into the cement floor. Each shelving unit – or “row”, as they were referred to in the bag room – also featured a long, vertical handle by which you could push or pull the unit along the tracks. Working in the bag room was an hourly-wage position that was exceedingly simple, highly-enjoyable, and offered consistent pay a few days a week. At least that is what I was told by the one bag room attendant that I could stand: Billy Pirken.

Billy was opening that day for the bag room, which became evident with the garage door of the room was opened with a loud metallic rumble. From my vantage point in the caddy shack I could see roughly halfway into the bag room, which allowed me to see Billy climb into a golf cart (which were also kept in the back of the bag room) and begin driving down the paved cart path towards me. This was beyond standard operating procedure for notifying a caddy of an assigned golfer for the day, and despite my friendship with Billy, a bag room boy visiting the caddy shack usually meant one thing: you were in for a long day.

Billy arrived to the shack with a slight skid on the damp morning grass.

“How’s it going, Silky?” Billy asked. My last name – Silk – was probably one of my favorite attributes. Not many stupid nicknames could be made up based on a four-letter surname, and even my first name – Brian – was about as textbook as you could hope for. Being called ‘Silky’ was about the worst that could be contrived, and was one I decided to accept.

“Not much Billy. Got a loop for me?” I replied. I figured if I played it cool and didn’t show that I was anxious as to why a bag room employee was bothering me, the ridicule would be mild at best.

“Not today. Brewer wants you to come up to the bag room for the day.  Carlos called in again this morning and Pro is pissed. Looks like you’ve been promoted.” Billy slapped the seat next to him in the cart. “Hop in.”

(Note: The above was originally published in my self-published book, "The Bag Room." Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those who can sue me.)

Excerpt from Adam's Book: "The Bag Room"

Here is another excerpt from my book, The Bag Room, available on Lulu.com as an eBook. You can purchase a copy of the book from clicking on the link "Buy My Book" on the right side of this blog. Chapter 3

“A golf course is nothing but a poolroom moved outdoors.”

  ~Barry Fitzgerald, Going My Way

By the end of that summer I had been hired on part-time as a bag room attendant, thus ending my days as a caddy at Alvarton Country Club. Sure, I was still allowed to caddy if I wanted to on my days off, but I was making enough steady income (for a 16-year old at least) to keep my Blazer filled with gas and enough cash to goof off at night. Another job skill that I learned quickly from my days as a caddy was how to become the biggest kiss-ass I could possibly be in order to earn more tips than the other guy I was working with that morning. When added to my $7/hr wage, a good “tip day” would immediately bump that rate upwards of $15 to $16 dollars an hour.  Needless to say, I was kissing a lot of ass.

                The duties of the job were pretty simple for the most part:

•      Make sure the member’s clubs were clean and in the proper shelving slot
•      Keep the sand bottles and golf carts filled with sand and gas, respectively
•    Fold towels for the locker room and each golf cart (Alvarton tried to be high-class by putting hand towels in each cart so members could use them to wipe their golf balls.  Most just stole the towels.)
•    Maintain the driving range

That last item on the list – maintaining the driving range – was by far the worst part of the job. You could have asked any bag room employee and they all would have said the same thing.  Sure, it seems like an easy task; set out the range balls every morning, drive the range picker tractor to retrieve the balls, run the baskets of balls through the ball washer, repeat the following day.  What wasn’t immediately clear to a new bag room boy like me was that anything could go horribly wrong during any of those seemingly simple steps that would ultimately ruin the rest of your day.

                My first experience with setting up the range came the first weekend after being hired on in the bag room. As with most part-time jobs, the typical day was broken out into two shifts: 6am to 2:00pm, and 2:00pm to close. This particular Saturday I was on the closing shift along with another veteran bag room employee, Clayton Phillips.  He was not only one of the best employees at the club, but also smoked more pot than anyone I had ever met.  He would come to work stoned and remain that way throughout the 6 or 7 hours of his shift. If that wasn’t impressive enough, he also managed to never make a mistake during his shift.  All the members loved him, the golf pros loved him, and the lifeguards at the A.C.C. pool really loved him. Clayton was a handsome young man who lead a carefree lifestyle that any self-respecting, beautiful lifeguard female would love to bring home to her disapproving parents. If Matthew Mcconaughey from Dazed and Confused worked at a golf course, Clayton Phillips was that character to the smallest detail.

                Clayton and I had made our way to the driving range picker (or “the picker”, as we liked to call the rickety old caged tractor used to pick up the golf balls on the range) and he was attempting to give me a crash course in driving the contraption while also packing a one-hitter – or a metal pipe used to smoke small bits of pot at a time- in his lap.  He was seated on the passenger side and I was behind the wheel.

                “Alright man,” Clayton had said. “These things handle just like a normal golf cart, except you’ve got that big tractor thing in front of you. Take your turns slow, try not to make them too sharp, and don’t ride along any hills sideways. I don’t want to spill my weed, cool?”

                Clayton was right; the picker was relatively easy to drive and handled almost exactly like a golf cart would. Getting used to the tractor extending out in front of you didn’t take too much time, and within a few minutes we were cruising around the driving range scooping up golf balls with no problem. Clayton was surrounded in a cloud of sour-smelling smoke while offering pointers to me between puffs.  This lesson was going pretty smoothly.

                Now, remember when I said that Alvarton County Club was more of a dog track than an actual golf course? The particular piece of land that the club was built around was not only littered with hills and valleys but also had a wide creek that ran through 13 of the 18 holes on the course. This creek was widest near the first and third holes, but it also featured a pretty wide (and horribly inconvenient) portion smack-dad in the middle of the driving range. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

                While coming down a hill by one of the four target greens on the range – careful to not spill any of Clayton’s pot, of course – the setting sun managed to glare on the picker’s windshield just enough to blind me for about two seconds. This temporary blindness was just enough to allow me to drive perpendicular to the creek at full speed.

                “Shit dude! Turn the wheel!” Clayton barked at me as we were just a few feet away from falling into the creek. I managed to turn the steering wheel hard to the right (Clayton’s pot was a goner) and the cab rode the side of the creek for a split-second before finding grass once again.  Another lesson I learned that day was that the picker’s tractor was actually wider than the cab of the vehicle, and the entire left half of the tractor was now swimming in the creek bed. I also quickly learned that the A.C.C. creek had a pretty strong current, which was taking range balls out of the tractor’s baskets at an alarming rate. Clayton and I jumped out of the picker and ran down to the foot of the creek and surveyed the situation.

                “Now what the hell are we gonna do?” I asked. I hadn’t even been on the job for more than a few weeks, and all I could think about was how Brewer was going to react when he learned I broke his range picker. Of course, I had no idea if it was broke or not, but I have a habit of assuming the worst.

                Clayton jumped down into the creek – which was only a foot or so deep – and started pushing on the tractor.  “Get in the picker and floor it in reverse, Silk. I’ll lift here and it should work.” I followed his orders and climbed back into the picker, reached down on the floor, clicked the transmission switch to “reverse” and hit the gas. Clayton stayed in the creek and did the best he could to lift the heavy tractor. After a few seconds the picker started to roll backwards, and eventually Clayton was able to guide the tractor out of the creek and back onto land.  I stopped the picker and climbed out to help Clayton out of the creek. “Sorry about that man. Maybe I shouldn’t drive this thing anymore?”

                “Are you kidding? You know how many times we’ve driven this thing into the creek? Shit man. I used to do it once a week just to take more time down here and away from the bitchy ‘members’ up by the club.” Clayton was already packing another hitter with what weed he had left. “Don’t sweat it. Besides, when Brewer hears that you’ve broken your picker cherry he’s gonna laugh it off.”

                Perhaps the most important lesson I learned while working in the bag room was that most of the guys were decent dudes, which went completely against the impression I had of them as a caddy. We hated the bag room boys, even to the point that we would avoid them at all costs when walking around the property of Alvarton. The avoidance always seemed to be based on whatever fear a younger child has when approaching an older kid. I remember having the same feelings of avoidance during grade school or my early high school years whenever I would run into an upperclassman.  While there were a few instances when my fears would be realized because of some jerk at school, most of the time these fears were complete irrational and quickly diminished once I actually got to know a person. I still tend to become fearful of uncertain situations even to this day, but befriending and working alongside some of the bag room employees help me settle those concerns much faster than I probably otherwise would have.

                Clayton and I finished picking the range (Clayton drove for a bit while he showed me where to stay away from on the terrain and how to not drive the damn thing into the creek) and then drove the picker up towards the caddy shack to our iron baskets where we would empty the balls from the tractor in preparation of running each basket through the ball washer. While the range picker was simple to drive, the old range ball washer was a completely different problem.

                As I stood up next to the ball washer, Clayton could see that I was completely confused as how to even turn the device on let alone operate with any sense of skill. “You look like a lost puppy, man,” he said as he walked up to assist. “Here; let me explain what this piece of shit can do.”

                The ball washer worked like this: you pour a basket of balls into the top of the machine, which looked a lot like a woodchipper. The top of the machine was angled down to allow for the balls to roll towards the middle of the machine, which then fed into a circular track that wrapped around a large brush submerged in water. When the washer was turned on, the brush would spin and guide the balls along the track until ultimately dropping out the bottom of the machine and into another waiting basket. An entire basket of range balls – which could fit upwards of 300 balls when filled to the brim – could be cleaned in less than a few minutes when the machine was working properly.  The key, of course, was that the washer had to be working properly. It never did.

                Clayton showed me where to load the golf balls into the washer and then went back outside the caddy shack to empty the rest of the tractor. Before too long I had the washer running at full speed with no problems, and the balls were moving through their track with ease. After awhile I began to notice a peculiar smell, however, coming from the bottom of the washer.  “Hey Clayton, something stinks in here man.”

                “That’s just the water, man.  Smells like it hasn’t been changed in a couple days.  As long as there’s soap in there you should be fine. Do you see any suds?”

                I confirmed that I did, in fact, see soap suds pouring out of the machine and onto the shack’s cement floor.  The smell started to get worse as the first basket of balls finished, but I paid no attention and grabbed another basket of dirty golf balls that Clayton had brought for me to clean. After pouring the dirty basket into the top of the washer I flipped the switch to “ON” and started the machine to work on the second basket.  Suddenly, the foul smell was now accompanied by a screeching sound and the balls stopped moving along their track. Great, I thought to myself. First the picker and now I broke this?

                Clayton heard the screeching sound and strolled up to me near the washer. “Aww, that sucks man. Looks like a ball is stuck near the brush. You’re gonna have to turn it off and fish that little fucker out.” What Clayton was referring to – and something I couldn’t have possibly known prior to turning on the washer – was that sometimes a driving range ball will have a small cut in its cover thanks to years of being smashed by irons and drivers. The issue was that when one of these cut balls made their way into the washer’s track, it would literally wrap itself around the iron track and get stuck, thus halting the entire cleaning process. Oh, and it would cause the washer to scream like a banshee, too.

                This was a complete pain in the ass and by far the worst aspect of picking the driving range. In fact, if you were to go to Alvarton now and ask what the bag room boys hated most about the driving range, they would undoubtedly say “that fucking ball washer”.  To make matters worse the only way to clear out the stuck ball from the washer was to take off the top of the machine and stick your hands into the foul, disgusting water and feel around until you found the cracked ball. Clayton watched as I knelt down and begrudgingly reached into the machine’s water tub. After a few seconds of searching and whining to Clayton that I couldn’t find the ball, I suddenly felt the sharpness on my fingertips that could only be that of a cracked golf ball cover.

                Now, what Clayton did teach me was why the ball washer stopped.  What he didn’t explain was how I could actually remove the broken golf ball from the track.  So I had to improvise.

                With my fingers secured tightly around the cracked golf ball, I started to tug as hard as I could, trying my damndest to get the ball out of the track. When I noticed it simply wasn’t moving, I decided to place my foot on the base of the tub for more leverage. With one final violent pull on the cracked golf ball I managed to free the ball from the track.  I also fall backwards onto my ass with the foul water and washer’s tub completely emptying on top of me.

                Golf balls were rolling everywhere.  Water that hadn’t been changed in probably a month was in my mouth, in my eyes, and had completely soaked my clothing. The smell was beyond hideous. I have yet to experience a smell anything close to what the stale, stagnant, golf-course-chemical-saturated water bath offered to me as I laid on my back surrounded by the mess I had just created. When I did manage to finally open my eyes I noticed that not only was Clayton peering down at me, but also the lifeguard he was currently dating from the club: Sarah Swolski. To say that this particular life guard was “hot” or “attractive” would be an understatement. Clayton once explained to anyone who would listen that he picked his women like he picked his weed: only the best cuts. Sarah was certainly that, and now she was looking down at me covered in filth.

                “Did you get the ball?” Sarah asked as she smiled.  Clayton had already begun laughing behind her. I peered over at my left hand and noticed I was still holding the cracked golf ball, which I lifted up to show Sarah.

                “Yeah.  I got it.” I said as I picked myself up off the ground. After we all shared a quick laugh, and after Clayton reminded Sarah that I also drove the range picker into the creek, he told me to go home for the night and that he would finish the job for me.

                While walking away from the caddy shack and towards my Blazer I looked back at Clayton and Sarah just in time to see them shut the shack’s door and turn off the light, presumably to take care of additional business besides cleaning golf balls.  I later learned that Sarah had gotten pregnant that evening in the caddy shack, making Clayton the first bag room boy during my stint to quit Alvarton because he needed to find a “real job”. I sometimes wonder if they named their child after me, and if they had to throw their clothes away as well because of the water smell.

"The Bag Room" - My New Book Has Been Published!

After about 4 months of planning and writing, my first book, The Bag Room, is now available for purchase via Lulu.com!

"Written in the style of Caddyshack, The Bag Room is a first-hand account of life as a country club employee including some secrets that many members don't want you to know."

This first edition is published as an eBook and can be downloaded as a PDF or ePUB file and is on sale for $8.99.

You can find a link to the purchase site by clicking on the Buy Now link on the right side of this blog's homepage or by clicking: http://www.lulu.com/commerce/index.php?fBuyContent=11135250

(Note: You may need to download Adobe Digital Editions to read the book. Get a free download of this program here: http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/)

'The Bag Room' Preview: Introduction & First Two Chapters

As most of you already know, I am a blogger and golf writer for two websites, ChicagoDuffer.com and WaggleRoom.com.  I usually share some opinions on the goings-on of the PGA, LPGA, and European golf tours on those two sites. What some of you may not know is that I also worked at a country club in the area for 10 years throughout grade school, high school and into college. During that time I worked as a caddie, a pro shop attendant and in the country club's "bag room", which was where the members stored their golf bags. For all intents and purposes, it was your typical summer job that included a ton of ridiculous stories that one would expect from someone growing up around the game of golf.

I have decided to write a book detailing some of these stories, and it is currently in the editing process. However, I am able to share the first two chapters of the manuscript with you (if you care to read it). You can find the HTML file URL in this post for viewing. 

Thanks for any interest, and I appreciate any feedback from this preview.

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