My Golf Year of 2024
© 2025 Mark McWiggins
In the late Spring of 2024 I was invited to be on the board of a local golf club where I lived then: Maplewood. I was at the board meeting and one of the guys (I didn’t get his name) said he should be given a statue in his honor.
I thought for a minute, then said to the group I was with “I second the motion if and only if the statue is made out of butter,” which got a big laugh. For those not familiar with the reference:
After that time, I … have this condition where it usually takes me 10 minutes or so in the bathroom, whether or not I have to pass a bowel movement. This can be a problem at golf, as sometimes my playing partners either aren’t listening or have the marshalls hassling them or just decide that they’re tired of waiting.
But my first golf goof was partially self-inflicted. I stopped in the bathroom between tees, and when I got out, I went in the wrong direction and drove my cart halfway around the whole 18 until I finally got back to the correct tee and finished .. stopping at #16 that day because they closed.
In my defense, the signage on that course was not very extensive and I had to rely on the map on the card.
I played a couple more times in Hawaii, once accidentally swapping 7 irons with one of my playing partners, which I have to this day.
The further escapades happened back in the Seattle area. One other day at Maplewood I was playing with some guys I didn’t know, stopped in the bathroom, didn’t see anybody when I got out and quickly played the 16th, 17th and 18th hole and was sitting the clubhouse with an iced tea and some cheesecake when they came in and said things like “you left!” I said “I thought YOU left!” I just played 16, 17 and 18 and came in. “You couldn’t have!” “I did!” After that he turned me into the management and I had to agree to make sure to stay with whoever I was playing with so I didn’t get beaned with a golf ball or something. Like I had become Forrest Gump of golf all of a sudden. Sheesh.
After that I just one or two more incidents. I have this good friend John, one of the best friends I made in Seattle when I first got there in 1983. We played a lot when I was in my late 30’s and he was in his late 50’s. One day last year I looked him up and we went out to play Bellevue, the main local course we had played 27 years before. But that day, the marshalls were rushing things and surprise: I was in the bathroom. When I got out they had been forced by the marshall to pick up my ball and advance two holes. I also got more “Forrest Gump” kind of talk from the marshal there. (I don’t really appreciate this at all; I have a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Washington!)
That’s it for me. Knock it stiff!
