[FASTLARRY]

Prior to my 3rd plane crash where I broke my back, that ended all jogging because my back could not take the impact of running after I healed and rehabed. The plane coming in dead stick with both engines out, stalled, fell straight down and the impact broke my back which healed, but it crushed the padding between my vertebrae and I am like a car now running without shock absorbers. I lost an inch of height. Prior to that, I used to run 4 or 5 miles every other day.

I could drink like a fish, eat like a pig, and keep in shape by running. I could have my cake, and eat it too.

I was always a fast player because I was a scratch player. We hit it long, don’t lose balls, hit it on, 2 putt and we are on the next tee. When I got to Florida and got out on those public courses, with all those old people hitting ground balls and taking 6 hours to complete a round, I almost went nuts. Dubs Dread was never crowded and all the players there were good and fast. Even the old people were fast. No women or kids were allowed. The entire Florida golf thing was quite a shock to me. It was one big giant zoo out there. I realized that the public golf course thing was something I could not deal with.

Finally I got into a top Country Club and playing rounds went fast. Prior to Florida I was a salesman driving town to town in my car with my golf clubs in the trunk. Now I was flying everywhere and was on the road every Monday through Friday. I realized I could not drag around my golf bag.

So I put a 1 and 6 iron, a sand wedge, and a putter in my clothes bag. I could get off early in the afternoon, hit a nice country club which would always allow me to come in, coming from a recognized top club, and work on my short game, hits some putts, a few sand shots, some iron shots on the range. If I wanted to take a client out to play the pro would usually have a decent set and bag he would loan or rent to you. I could drive my 1 iron 250 so it did not matter if the woods in the bag were crap or not. I only really wanted the irons.

And if it was not crowded, I would take off on foot, with my 4 clubs in hand, balls in my pocket, no bag, and head off the back 9, and play Jog golf. Usually I would sneak out there.

I would tee off on the par 4 with my 1 iron, hit the fairway, jog down the fairway, pick up the ball and drop it around 10 behind the 150 plate, hit the 6 on the green, jog down, drop a ball into the trap, wedge on, putt both balls, jog to the next tee and repeat. I would be getting my running and my golf in at the same time. You would not believe now fast I could play 9 holes that way.

If I came up to a group, I would walk around them, and then when out of sight, begin jogging again. A lot of courses do not want joggers out there and ban them because they bother the golfers who have a cow and grand mal if anything moves when they are addressing the ball. So I never ran past them, or they would turn you in. You had to sneak around with this. It was my favorite way to play twilight golf. You never got to play all 18 in a row because of skipping holes and people, but that did not matter because I was not keeping score.

If I got caught and thrown out, so what, it was not my course, I was out of town, big deal. Who were they going to tell?

It was not easy to catch me, they did not call me fast, for nuttin. Beep Beep...........

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