Cheating at golf pays - to a good cause

I'm so ineffective at golf anymore that I can't even cheat successfully.

Before the start of Saturday's Harvest Open at the Royal Golf Course, Tournament Director Elijah Perkins announced he would hit our drives on No. 10 for $5 toward the support of the golf course.

Good deal, I thought. The cause was right, and Perkins is the head pro at Othello Golf Club. His drive would guarantee me at least one par for the day.

To make sure of a par, I put up a second $5 for my partner, Caroline Holmes of Desert Aire. As Caroline Pingatore she was the captain of the 1968 U.S. Olympic gymnastics team.

Still a good athlete, Caroline is one of the better women players at Desert Aire. I brought her to Royal Golf Club as my ringer.

When we got to No. 10, Elijah was waiting. He proceeded to hit both balls 400 yards straight down the middle.

Well that ought to guarantee us a par and maybe even a birdie, I said to Caroline.

"No kidding," she chimed back at me as she excitedly drove our golf car down the fairway.

Both balls were perfectly placed on the par-5 hole, about 120 yards from the green on lush fairway grass. We were pumped. Gotta be a birdie.

I went first, hitting the second shot on Caroline's ball in the chapman format. I used my 120-yard club and skulled the ball about 70 yards to just short of some cruddy grass.

"You invited me here for that?" Caroline commented with a laugh.

No problem. That's why I got you for a partner.

Caroline took out her 120-yard club and launched a beauty, right into the cruddy grass.

My ringer.

Caroline's ball was in better shape. So she went again and chipped to about 30 feet above the hole. Fearful of the slope, I putted five feet short, and we walked off with a bogey.

We never told Elijah. The best he could have done was laugh. He got us 400 yards in one shot. We got 120 yards in five shots.

But it was all his fault. We'd never seen a par-5 from 120 yards after one shot. We didn't know what to do.

Without any help from Elijah, we parred the next hole. Caroline even won the KP contest. She hit a pitching wedge tee shot of 100 yards that cleared a trap and stopped 16 feet from the hole.

Next time I'll pay Elijah $5 to keep his driver in the bag.