Fully-tested, this kid is a candidate for senior tour
Brian Young takes a practice swing on No. 9 tee before firing a tee shot that's long and only a little off center to the right.
Brian Young's game was interrupted briefly at hole No. 5 when a family of Crescent Bar deer came out to dine on apples someone set out for them. One seemed to be commenting about our game.
John Jessup and I had our regular nine-hole golf game last Saturday.
Our usual third, Burt Lucas, was on injured reserve and unavailable. So we got a hotshot kid, John's son-in-law Brian Young, as a substitute.
We gave Brian a full test, and we've declared him ready for the professional senior tour. He hadn't played in two weeks and still shot 36.
Thirty-six may not seem that tough to some players, but they haven't played with J.J. and me. It's tough to concentrate on the ball while we're chatting up a storm about world problems such as the Seattle Mariners, Washington Huskies and Raquel Welch.
Address, backswing and follow-through don't matter. We have only nine holes to finish our chat. We're so bad we can't concentrate enough to demonstrate our mastery of the game.
Like any excellent golfer, Brian blew the easiest hole on the course, No. 6. You know it's the easiest because J.J. and I can par it.
We put Brian to the test immediately. We made him walk. There was room for only two players on J.J's cart, and we were the elders.
We made Brian tee off third. It was his punishment for being only 51 and still having a fluid swing. Besides, respect for elders, pecking order and all that stuff is the right of super seniors.
John started with a scorching 120-yarder. I followed with a worm-burning 150-yarder. Then Brian launched a ball that found the fairway about 250 yards from where it started. So much for the order of things.
The only reason Brian didn't birdie No. 1 was that his dead-center putt from 20 feet came up one inch short on Crescent's notoriously slow greens.
Brian sailed along with par, including the long par-4 fourth hole. Then mother natured provided a test. A family of deer came out to witness our tee shots on the par-3 fifth hole.
With that tough crowd behind us, Brian's nerves came unraveled, and he came up 10 yards short of the green. But he chipped to within inches and parred.
Then came the fateful sixth hole. It's only 295 yards to the green, a sure birdie hole, and Brian striped a drive to easy birdie range. Then he came up 10 feet short on his approach and 25 feet long on his chip and bogeyed.
"Looks like he's cracking," John said.
Yup, looks that way.
It didn't help Brian that the pull cart he rented at the golf shop came apart on that fairway and his clubs spilled to the ground. It was no mercy. We made him carry his bag and the cart.
So, what did he do?
He blasted a drive down the middle on No. 7 that turned right just as it went past the trees at the corner of the dogleg. Then he nailed the green. All J.J. and I could do was cheer.
"Hey coach," John commented, "what do you think of this guy stealing your thunder?
My thunder? He's your son-in-law. Besides, my thunder escaped me years ago.
Brian parred out, and J.J. and I suggested he start playing every day now that he's retired and prepare to challenge for a spot on the senior tour. I even took his picture on No. 9 tee just in case he does.
He smiled and said: "Nah. I don't have a passion for golf. It seems I play better after a couple of weeks off."
John called out to me: "Is that it, coach: less passion and more time off?"
Maybe. Or we could just give up entirely. We both shot more than 44.