My dad was the golf pro at our local country club. When you live in a small Ohio town, the country club is one of the more important organizations in town and probably the snootiest. So I was a pretty proud young fellow at the age of thirteen. After all, my dad was one of the most important people at one of the most important places in town. Not that we lived anything like royalty. Far from it. Dad's salary was the scrimp along kind, and he had to play in tournaments to keep us all in things like bicycles, cars and clothes.
The biggest event of the year for our family was the club's annual Pro-Am open tournament. Dad was the favorite player of course since he was the host Pro. Naturally, the high rollers in the club had more money riding in side bets than the purse itself. Dad always placed in the top ten at this event, but the summer of my thirteenth year was to prove a milestone for both of us. Dad was at the top of the leader board going into the final day with a one-stroke lead. I was in the crowd watching this last group of the day and going from hole to hole. Dad had lost his lead early in the day and went one down, but by the seventeenth hole, he had got one back to tie for the lead. The last hole was a short, 348 year par four and was made to order for my dad's game. He was a long hitter and always managed to get his drive within 60 to 80 yards of the green. Unfortunately, his playing partner that day was matching him stroke for stroke so that both had really good drives on this last hole. I was in the gallery surrounding the eighteenth green when dad's opponent, who was only slightly farther away from the hole struck his second shot. It was one of those high, arching shots that come down with a little backspin. This guy's shot landed above the pin and slightly to the right, then rolled back to the hole stopping less than two feet away for a sure birdie putt.
Then it was dad's turn. He hit a shot that was equally beautiful, and I held my breath while waiting for it to land. It also hit just above the pin and rolled toward the hole, only dad's shot was on a dead aim for the center of the cup. I was beside myself. Dad was going to make an eagle and win the tournament! And then the ball stopped just an inch short of the cup. I couldn't believe it. It was a sure birdie for dad, but the other guy couldn't miss that short putt, either. It would go into extra holes and with the sudden death rule, it would be anybody's game. It just wasn't fair. I couldn't contain myself. While the two players were walking up to the hole, I darted out from the crowd, ran to my dad's ball, and knocked it into the cup.
You wouldn't believe the uproar that I caused. The guys betting on dad were ecstatic and were already insisting that he had won. After all, the rules didn't say anything about this situation. Dad was mortified, of course. He was the most honest man in town, and when it came to golf, he was stickler for the rules. This time, though, he was a player and not a field judge so he had to leave it up to the rules committee.
Now you may not know anything about golf, but if you do, I'll bet you have an opinion on this one. Well, here' what the rules committee decided: under the Rules of Golf, once the player's ball is in the cup, he is deemed to be "holed out" and the ball can only be considered to be "in play" at the next tee. Since there was no next tee, dad was considered to be "holed out" with his last stroke thus winning the tournament with an eagle.
Dad was less than happy with this decision. He even offered to play the last hole over again. But the rules committee had made a decision. the trophy, and the prize money, were his.
But when he came into the locker room, his face was like thunder. His only son had dared to meddle with his game and there was going to be hell to pay for that.
As soon as he spotted me, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the massage room which was dark and empty at the time.
"You are never, EVER, to touch another man's ball without his permission. Do you understand?"
Still not sure of what was yet to come, a smart-alecky comment came to mind about using ball in the plural, but I was a little too smart to try it out. Thank God.
"But, I was only trying..."
"NEVER!" he shouted. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, but..."
During this brief dialog he had undone the belt on my pants and already had them down around my ankles.
"NEVER!" he repeated as he yanked down my underpants.
And then I was across his knee and getting a spanking like I had never imagined. And I had never been so surprised in my life. I though he'd be happy, and here he was spanking me like some little kid. And spanking me har. Harder than I had ever known. By his third swat I knew that this was going to be that one spanking that every kid dreads, the one where you lose all control. And I did. Before it was over, I was bawling, and sobbing, and pleading for him to stop, and promising to do whatever would be necessary to escape from the awful drubbing my poor bottom was taking. My ass was a mass of stinging, burning, fiery flesh.
When he was finally finished, he ordered me to take off my clotes and hit the showers. Between sobs, I protested that I didn't want to go out in the locker room in front of everybody.
"What's the matter?" he said. "Don't you think they all know that you just took a spanking? I'd be surprised if the whole _d_a_m_n_ed club doesn't know it by now after the way you were bawling your head off. Now get into the showers or you'll have even more to cry about."
Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have known that everybody was listening in to my humiliation, but somehow, while we were in the darkened room alone, I had imagined that it was all happening somewhere else. When I stepped out of that room, naked, and with a flaming red ass, my embarrassment was complete. I wanted to die on the spot. But all I could manage to do was walk unsteadily over to the shower room and step into one of the stalls. I don't remember much else about that day. Dad got me some clean clothes, and we went home.
That should have been an end to it. But the gods of golf do not smile on young ball meddlers. My dad's opponent had registered a protest with the state golf federation over the ruling. Their decision came down two days later. What it said, in far too many words, was that the rules committee was full of _s_h_i_t_. A player's ball is considered to be "holed out" only when the player himself has knocked it into the cup. The ruled committee should had had dad lift his ball out and replace it on the spot nearest where it had come to rest and then play it out normally. There was no penalty since he could not have been responsible for the actions of an "outside agency."
There was an addendum, however. Whether or not the rules committee's decision was right or wrong didn't matter. In golf, once a decision is made, it is never changed.
Dad was called into the club's office to face an ethics committee. The whole thing didn't last more than five minutes. It may have been dad's son that did the evil deed, but he had been severely punished in fron of the whole club, in a manner of speaking. So the committee, who were his friends, after all, ruled that he was blameless in the affair and that he had won the tournament fairly.
Of course, being the straight arrow that he was, dad didn't see it quite that way. Oh, he went along with the decision, of course. What choice did he have? But when he came home that nigh and told us what had happened, I had a dreadful foreboding that all was not going to be well with my bottom that night.
"All right, son," he said, "you and I are going out to the garage. I've got something special out there just for you."
Some thing in his voice told me that "something special" was not going to be a new bicycle. I was right. Lying on his workbench was a wooden paddle that he had been working on for the last two days.
"Oh, dad! No!" I said in a tremulous voice. "You're not going to paddle me, are you? After all, I did it for you. I was trying to help you!"
"Help me? By cheating? When did I ever tell you that cheating was the way to win? That cheating, even to benefit you father, was OK? It doesn't matter that the club exonerated me. You are my son, and you should know better. And, believe me, after tonight, you WILL know better. Now drop your pants and get over here."
I was so terrified that I almost wet my pants. I probably would have if I hadn't felt so shriveled up inside with fear. I opened up my pants as slowly as I could and shoved them down around my ankles, hoping, just like a condemned man, that I could put off the inevitable.
"Your underpants, too!" said dad. "That spanking at the club was a litle boy who didn't know any better. But that really doesn't apply to you, does it? This time you're going to get an adult spanking to teach you to always follow the rules. The rules of life as well as the rules of golf. Now ben over that sawhorse and touch your palms to the floor."
I did as ordered, and, sure enough, that paddle smacked into my behind with a force that almost knocked me over. Time and time again, dad let me have it until I was ready to let it all out. I howled. I bawled. I cried and sobbed and pleaded. But nothing would get him to stop the awful beating until he was sure that would never, ever forget to obey the rules.
That was twenty years ago. I run a small business in town, now, and I'm a member of the golf club. Because I know the rules quite literally by heart, I am on the rules committee, and hardly a weekend goes by that I am not asked what the rules say about a variety of situations. But my ass still gives an involuntary little twitch every time someone asks a question about the ball itself.
July 8, 1997