As the 22-foot eagle putt dropped into the cup, BoBo looked at me with a humongous shit-eating grin and chuckled, “right about now I should be walking down the aisle.”
Nancy had been BoBo’s girlfriend for five years. They had started dating when they were juniors in high school and now after their junior year of college she had decided that it was time to get married. It just made sense to her, “we could save some money by living together and sharing expenses.” After all, she had been doing his laundry for the past two years.
So how did we, members of the Fort Hays State golf team, know she had been doing his laundry? How did we really know? We knew because she would leave little notes in his shorts or golf slacks, that she had so meticulously pressed. (BoBo had to have his golf outfits perfect.) We would be walking down the fairway and BoBo would pull a note from one of his pockets, chuckle, then hand it to one of his team members to enjoy and share with the rest of the team. The notes usually went something like this: “I love you Tiger (we were the Fighting Tigers), don’t drink!”
Don’t drink? Impossible! Our coach, who was a professor in the art department, loved to party as much as we did. On each out of town trip a room would be chosen as the party room and the bathtub would be filled with ice and beer. That way coach could keep an eye on us (you know, not let us go too wild), and get to bed at some reasonable time. After all we were conference champions and were serious about winning, we just liked to party also.
Back to the wedding – BoBo had agreed to a small wedding – he would have liked to eloped. Well, things got out of hand, quick! All of a sudden the wedding date was set for the second Saturday in June and Nancy had a list of 300 people on the guest list.
I kept thinking, who would get married on a weekend in the summer? This was back in the days of the weekend short-stop golf tournaments. Each west Kansas community had an annual golf tournament.
When I looked at the calendar, I was correct, it was the weekend of a really big tournament, 45-holes over two days with a nice calcutta; plus an event where I was defending champion. I had agreed to be his best man!
Now the cheap wedding was turning out to be a really big event. Nancy was an only daughter. They had the church reserved, then off to the VFW for a reception with all the trimmings. Now, instead of going to a golf tournament I had to stay home plus pay for a tux. Bullshit!
But, for my buddy and teammate BoBo, ok.
Withdrawing from the golf event was really hard. I know the tournament chairman was upset because with BoBo and me both not in the field the calcutta would be smaller and the clubs take of 10%, of the top, would be less.
It was about 5:30 on Thursday afternoon when BoBo came driving up to our team practice area and skidded his car to a halt. He came running over to me and said, “Do you think you can still get us in that tournament this weekend?”
I said, “Remember you are getting married at noon on Saturday.”
“Not any more! Nancy is really pissed and her parents want to kill me, but I just couldn’t do it. Oh, I have cancelled the tux and all we lose is the deposit money. Do you think you can get us in the tournament?”
“Let’s go right now and I will call him.” (Days before cell phones) When I got the tournament chairman on the phone he agreed to get us in, but our tee time would have to be the last in the championship flight, around noon.
The first hole was a 295-yard down hill dogleg right with a bunch of junk protecting the right side. The smart play is always to hit a 4-wood left and short and make a birdie with your wedge. My tee shot followed the plan. Perfect! Then BoBo walked to the tee with his driver and teed his ball high. I gave him the what-are-you-doing look and he just smiled. “Even if I hit it in the junk it is better than marrying Nancy today,” he smiled. Then knocked that new Titleist on the front edge, not far from the front right pin.
We finished first and second. You guess who won? We b both got a nice bonus gift from the guy who bought us both. BoBo said, “I like the money better than getting married.”
As luck would have it, BoBo did marry Nancy a few years later. Nancy saw to it that I was not best man! Her parents are still pissed.
