[FASTLARRY]

Hotel Golf

When I moved to Florida in 73, I was on the road full time. I had a bunch of people who would come down to see me, work with me, and they were to say the least, wild child’s. I think they were nuts to be frank. A couple of them were simple drunks. We were always staying at 4 star high rise hotels.

The game the two of us would play would be, from the 20th floor, open up the sliding glass door, and tee off out into the parking lot. The ball goes a long way from that far up. And when the ball came down, Holy She-yit, all kinds of wild she-yit happened then. You then could take 4 clubs with you. I had a 1 and 6 iron, putter and a lob wedge with no flange.

I later learned from experience found that hitting the ball into the cars made it hard to find it. I usually learned to club myself so I hit over them, but had farther to come back to the hotel. If you hit the parking lot, the ball would bouce up into the air several stories high. Finding your ball first, usually meant success. You ran to the elevator, went down and then calmly walked through the lobby, then found your ball out in the parking lot, usually imbedded into the roof of a Mercedes, which gave you a free drop, and you golfed your ball back into the hotel.

Once you got inside the front door you sort of punched it along with your putter so as not to arouse too much attention until you got the ball on the elevator and up to 20. There you putted it down the hall and into your room. Now here is the hard part, to win, you have to wedge the ball into the she-yitter. The area is always tight, you are hitting off hard pan, a lob wedge is best. If both players show up, you alternate shots until one plunks and wins. Score meant nothing. The winner was first in the toilet water. I used to practice that shot, got rather good at it.

Then you would lay low when somebody bitches about the busted windshield and hotel security tried to put the crime scene together. The phone would ring, did you see any one hitting golf balls, you would say, no, I’ve been asleep, don’t call back. maybe it just hailed or sometin? It usually worked because they were not dreaming any one would do this. Sometimes it did not WORK, and we got thrown out of the joint.

That did not bother us; we got thrown out of a lot of top joints. There are zillions of top joints to get thrown out of. You could not live long enough to run thrown all of them. We are the only group I was told that was ever thrown out of the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, and we had most of the place rented at the time. We also employed most of the people in the nearby Bay Minette. Some of these places, just have no sense of humor. We paid all the good looking staff and maids to get in bed with us and somehow that drove the hotel nuts when there was nobody to clean up a room. I mean, dude, a little moon lighting on the side, never hurt anyone.
I have been carried feet first by several bruisers twice out of the front door of the Golden Nugget in Vegas.

I don’t think this is possible today to play Hotel Golf, back then I could bounce my 1 iron off 2 or 3 cars with nobody knowing, and today all kinds of car alarms would go off. Back then, there was no hotel security, when you did something, they just called the cops. Today, somebody is watching you everywhere you go. Then, there were no cameras, so you could get back to your room and make a clean get away. Now all the halls have cameras and they would trace you right back to your room.

You can’t have any fun, any more I guess.

click the pic to have it come alive. This is what most people do, when they see something, they do not understand.

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