Tales from the first tee
Stories about my life experiences and others as I work at one of the premier golf clubs in Charleston, SC. Interviews with golfers around the world that have one thing in common...the pursuit of excellence on a golf course and everything else that happens along the way.
Tales from the first tee
Challenging Tradition: The Changing Face of Golf, Aging Athletes, and Unveiling Hidden Agendas
Can golf still be considered an exclusive sport, or is it being reshaped by a new generation with fresh ideas? Join me on Tales from the First Tee as we explore the current cultural shift within the golfing world, particularly in Charleston, South Carolina. This episode kicks off with a reflection on the recent election results, offering insights into their potential impact on American society and politics, especially in areas like border security and economic policies. From there, I take you on a journey through the evolving landscape of golf, where traditional etiquette meets modern innovation, fueled by the influx of new players. Discover how the sport is adapting to be more inclusive, with younger generations challenging age-old norms—like music on the green and tech-enhanced play.
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You're tuned in to another episode of Tales from the First Tee. I'm Rich Easton, telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. Welcome back to the podcast. You know I missed you. The election's over. A winner was chosen fair and square, and I only say that because if he wasn't the winner then it would have been another contested election with a constituency who are fervent First and Second Amendment supporters and activists. We've already seen that movie, so look, a majority of those who voted have spoken and I support the outcome. Yeah, so there's a part of me that's a little excited about this.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to better protected borders, less illegal aliens crossing our borders, inciting crime at a far greater rate than our legal citizens At least that's what we were told A time when illegal aliens now are not threatening our black jobs and eating our pets. A better, thriving economy that's right. A better economy, possibly resulting from imported goods being tariffed at such a high rate that make American-made goods thrive again, which fuels our workforce. We just have to encourage more Americans to want to work more and corporations to pay a higher cost of American labor and then sell the American public to be happier with American made goods that have to come at a higher price because of higher labor costs and foreign goods at higher prices because they were tariffed. I don't know. I'm certainly not an economist, just a retired sales and market executive who spent years creating sales decks and presentations to convince our customers that our solutions were in their best interest.
Speaker 1:I see political campaigns as just that, and the MAGA movement did a better job, plain and simple. But with this new election, there's another side of me that feels like a parent with a newborn who's given their child to Robert Robison to rock her to sleep at night, or just hiled Russell Lafitte, banker extraordinaire for Alex Murdaugh to manage my personal portfolio. I don't know, maybe I'm just a contrarian, but now the president-elect has the job of filling his cabinet with loyal unquestionably loyal supporters of his vision, and we, as the American public, get to hold each and every one of them accountable. I trust that our media, hollywood, hollywood moguls, comedians and anyone with a microphone will be busy helping them make our country stronger, healthier and more compassionate. Yeah, that's how I see it New management at a golf course in Charleston with signs up that basically say at a golf course in Charleston, with signs up that basically say no spitting, pissing, chewing, smoking or cursing. Who doesn't want to go play a course like that?
Speaker 2:Oh, pick me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know I know Me, me, okay, fine. What series of events must have transpired for a new management of a public golf course in the Charleston area to post and publish these rules? Well, this shit's not fiction. A local course in the let's call it the Somerville South Carolina area, after changing management, thought it was necessary to address and solve a growing problem of cursing, spitting, pissing, smoking golfers. It's common knowledge that the golf industry hit an unprecedented growth spurt following the pandemic shutdown. When there was like nothing else to do besides comment on how your partner loaded the dishwasher incorrectly or how everything your kids did was stupid or just behavior unbecoming of somebody their age, I mean, the only viable solution was to get out of the house, and five hours spent outdoors became a lifesaver. And if you happened to hit a few good irons, flush a drive or make a long putt to save triple bogey, you became hooked. Millions of first-time golfers and recommitted golfers hit the links, creating a windfall of sales and profits for the golf course owners.
Speaker 1:With one major unintended consequence Golf etiquette obliviousness. Some would call it oblivocracy, but those people don't read a lot. Golf has always carried a stigma of being too proper, stodgy, rulesy and elitist. However, with tradition breakers like Lee Trevino, chi Chi Rodriguez, charlie Sifford and, of course, tiger Woods and countless more to follow. Golf's evolved into a more cooler melting pot of athletes. Now that's not everywhere, but certainly at most all public, semi-private and private clubs where millennials and Gen Xers are starting to infiltrate the ranks. So now cultural profiles have changed, accepted golf attire changed, technology improved to make it easier and some of the rules changed to make it less penalizing and to speed up the game. What hasn't changed are the unwritten rules of etiquette, or have they?
Speaker 2:Hey, so where do we tee off?
Speaker 1:Hey boy, how are you? Hey, we're all set to go. You're my friend over here, don't you?
Speaker 2:Sure sure how you doing. Okay, right, right, okay. What are we waiting for these guys? Hey, whitey, where's your hat? Let's go while we're young. Mind sir trying to tee off, I bet you slice into the woods. A hundred bucks. Gambling is illegal at Bushwood, sir, and I never slice. Okay, you can owe me.
Speaker 1:With the continued advent of new technology, not only in golf equipment, but Bluetooth speakers make it easy to connect a speaker to your phone and play whatever music you like to help entertain you and motivate you when you're on the golf course. But who governs the volume, the music genre and when is it appropriate to blast or temper your favorite song when your opponent is in mid-swing? Golf ball markers have evolved to mini manhole covers. Now, for those that don't play golf much, golf ball markers are used when your balls are on the putting green and your ball might be in the way of somebody behind you that has to go past your ball to get to the hole. You tend to put down a marker. It used to be a dime, a quarter, or these very, very thin round markers with nipples that you'd press in the green and it would be flush with the top of the green. Now all these different manufacturers are making what looks like chips in a casino, but some of them are even thicker and bigger. I mean, with the proliferation of these markers, how often can somebody mark their ball and their opponent has to ask them to move it because it's directly in their line or because the giant marker casts a shadow that resembles a lunar eclipse. By the ninth hole your opponent has gone on tilt because he, she or they have given up asking nicely to have you move your marker again and again, and if they're from the Northeast, their soprano-like sarcasm starts to rear its ugly head. For those of you that don't golf, striking a golf ball with precision takes total concentration. It's not like you're a baseball player with people behind you yelling at you, football players with people throwing tortillas on the field. Typically, things have to be totally quiet when you swing the golf club. Any sudden movement or sound that doesn't come from the golfer in their pre-shot routine or in mid-swing can alter the stream of consciousness, affecting the intended outcome of the shot.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's any place in the rules of golf that instruct those who are watching their partners or opponents swing, tell them where not to stand or to be statuesque when somebody else is swinging. Nowhere in the rules of golf is there a chapter, paragraph or sentence that suggests that on a putting green you stand on the green, not directly behind the golf or on the opposite side of the hole to get a bird's eye view of the trajectory of the putt. Nor do the rules state that you should wait to move until the roll of the ball stops or is almost stopped. Now I've broached this particular topic with several of my golf cronies. Most of them think I'm overthinking Jeez, what a surprise. But many some. Okay, at least one golfer agrees with me.
Speaker 1:Walking on the green while somebody else is putting and the putts in motion affects the fabric of energy that surrounds all of us. It upsets the magnetic forces that govern gravity and objects in motion. Okay, I'm just fucking with you. It has no effect whatsoever on trajectory or line of the putt unless you walk right across the path where the ball's rolling, creating these T-Rex indentations in the grain. But it still bothers me.
Speaker 1:I know it's selfish, but I like to see my ball track towards the hole seconds after I stroke it, with no other objects to visually interfere with me or my ball. It's tantamount to yelling at someone else's ball when it's in mid-flight, heading towards a watery grave out of bounds or a bunker. Things like stay in, stay in turn, curve or even worse, uh-oh, fuck. I play with golfers that when anybody hits a bad shot, they have to exclaim exactly how they feel uh-oh, which is basically you're fucked. Actually, I'm not sure what's worse the disingenuous encouragement for your ball to totally change its course, or the seemingly innocent sound effect of uh-oh, which I've already said, means brother, you're fucked. Either way, I ask you nicely, keep your mouth off my ball.
Speaker 2:Keep my wife's name out, your fucking mouth.
Speaker 1:Now, perhaps I'm playing too many rounds of golf solo, with only myself to blame for bad shots. That being said, I play with a select bunch of good guys. Good golfers like Cloudy Graves, guns, mike K, billy the Kid the Tin man and Pauly Walnuts that are basically invisible when I hit the ball and, respectively, quiet whenever I play. So it's not an impossible ask to respect golf etiquette. So why don't most adhere? Maybe most do, and only a few bad apples upset the apple cart? Perhaps that's why the new management at this public golf course felt it was necessary to post the prohibited behavior. That being said, I think that falls into the category I call sales prevention. Why not invite the world to play and deal with bad behavior surgically no smoking or cursing. Well, motherfucker, I don't think I'm playing there anytime soon. Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul I mean man, what did you expect?
Speaker 2:Everyone has a plan.
Speaker 1:Until they get punched in the mouth. For some unknown reason, I've been getting mike tyson knockout clips on my for you tiktok feed for the past several months and I rarely scroll past them. I actually like it. In his prime he was the most fearful, fearless, intimidating human wrecking crew in the boxing ring. Even at 58, his workout clips demonstrated a work ethic and an eye of the tire like mania rarely seen in men over 40, probably 30.
Speaker 1:Any interview I've seen in the past six months showed celebrities, sports announcers and ex-pro boxers waxing and waning prophetically about Mike's chances of winning. I don't know how much money was wagered at the Tyson-Paul fight, but I'm guessing after the $60 to $70 million paid to both fighters in aggregate, there was a lot more gambled on the outcome and if you wagered it on Tyson, you'd have to believe the following. One Mike's experience and warrior-like attitude would outmaneuver a younger, less experienced influencer turned fighter. Two Mike's barrage of hooks and uppercuts would basically put Jake Paul on his heels and his back in the first or second round or certainly for the remainder of the fight. Number three Mike would knock him out before he tired out, and if you wagered on Jake Paul, you'd have to believe that number one, mike is past his prime and his legs wouldn't last three rounds.
Speaker 1:Number two Jake's speed, strength and stamina would outlast Mike's. And number three Jake's past fight wins were the result of him being able to take punches and deliver more, despite the fact that he never fought a current heavyweight champ in their prime. If you watch the fight without listening to the fight announcers, it seemed like a close fight. No knockdowns or knockouts made the fight seem close, but if you listen to the announcers Mauro Ronaldo, Roy Jones Jr and Rosie Perez all you heard is that Mike Tyson lost his legs by the third round and there's got no legs, lieutenant dang. And there's something about Rosie Perez's accent that always puts a smile on my face, and maybe it's my Brooklyn roots.
Speaker 2:I didn't know. I had an accent. Do you want me to say more?
Speaker 1:I know that she's a reported boxing fan from way back, but quite frankly, after hearing some of the things she said, I would have preferred someone like Joe Rogan or Layla Ali, but I'm guessing they couldn't afford her. After paying so much for Jake and Mike For every Gen Xer and baby boomer that's past their fighting prime, we hoped that Mike had one more in him. I mean, tom Brady won his last Super Bowl at age 44. Phil Mickelson won his last major shy of 51. And Lindsey Vonn just came out of retirement at age 40. Mike beating Jake at 58 would have been big for boomers.
Speaker 1:But here's the server lining my silver sneaker savants. He got in incredible shape for this fight. He had a mission and he challenged himself, just like my senior golf buddies who still believe they can continue to shoot their age and, by the way, many of them can. Aging out of anything is disheartening, it just is. It usually happens at a glacial-like pace. We all tend to justify missteps or loss of speed, balance or strength with justifications like it was just a bad day. Hey, michael Jordan only scored eight points against the Cavaliers in 1986. We all just have bad days. And when we start comparing ourselves to goats on their worst day, that's when our friends should throw the red flag on us and say you were never a goat and you're getting slow.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's certainly why golf courses have different color tee boxes. It allows golfers to compete at lower yardages as they get older. Did you ever notice that woman's tee boxes never change over time? I guess they must deteriorate at a snail's pace. And even though most golf courses suggest a minimum age for golfers to play the more forward tee boxes, most men wait. They don't want to do it. So at one of the golf courses I play it. So at one of the golf courses I play, 60 is the year that it's okay for golfers to compete in tournaments on the forward tee boxes. But guys fight it. They don't want to admit that their skills are declining, that they're not as strong they can't hit the ball as far, declining that they're not as strong, they can't hit the ball as far. So most of the guys I know, ego-driven of course will delay, delay, delay until they are five to ten years past that cutoff point and maybe, when they're in their 70s, say, okay, I'll play with the old guys. Well, there's no handicapping system in professional boxing. Mike couldn't have gone into that fight winning the first three rounds automatically. He had a fight with a 27-year-old guy that was faster, stronger and more durable. Quite frankly, I thought he did pretty good and his bank account did great.
Speaker 1:Senate confirmation hearings of UAPs hits page six and little green men from the US public. We all learned a new acronym UAP Unidentified, anomalous Phenomenon. I like UFO better In 2023,. House members heard testimonies from Navy pilots, lieutenant Ryan Graves and Commander David Fravor, and their accounts of specific incidents. David Grush, pentagon intelligence officer, offered testimony about alleged shadowy multi-decade Pentagon programs to retrieve and study downed spacecraft and extraterrestrial pilots. And what happened? The DOD debunked their testimonies On November 13th 2024, in a 214-page testimony. The Committee on Oversight Accountability questioned a bunch of experts on this same thing Admiral US Navy retired Luis Elizondo, former Defense Department, michael Gold, former NASA Space Policy, and Michael Schellenberger, professor and journalist.
Speaker 1:When I'm not inundated with feeds of Mike Tyson knocking out his contenders, I'm getting feeds about the Senate Oversight Committee on secret Pentagon agencies hiding evidence of UAPs, as well as Joe Rogan interviews with some of the same testifiers. Am I naive? Am I just getting bamboozled by these story fabricators? Or am I being protected by the US government because the evidence of ETs could threaten societal fabric woven by religion and government?
Speaker 1:From the time we can sit up, crawl and walk, we've been told stories about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and then, as we aged, we subscribed to religious beliefs, mostly because they made us feel part of something bigger, with like-minded individuals that probably had our best interests at heart, and often because that's what our parent unit practiced and believed in. So, practice religion makes sense. It makes sense in the family unit to develop a set of shared values. Then, as we get older, now our lives are governed by laws and practice, principles that help us feel safe and part of something even bigger for our health and safety, and that's how our government helps to protect us. Religions and government around the globe, despite some of the vast differences, all sell us on a belief system that make us feel part of something and it makes sense of the world and our place in it. The acknowledged existence of an entity not from this world or dimension poses some challenges to both religion and government. It challenges the stories we've been telling ourselves and certainly questions the safety that our government provides, considering that the subscribed UAP technology is far more advanced than anything we have.
Speaker 1:And because of these two monumental challenges, the news of the Oversight Committee ended up not on the front page, not on the second page, third, fourth or fifth. It ends up on the sixth page of the Wall Street Journal, on the lower right column, halfway down the page. I just don't know who to trust these days. But if I could benefit from better technology, from reverse engineering these UAPs, maybe my Roku TV will stop crashing and buffering for the next Tyson fight.
Speaker 1:All of those that testified in Congress for the first and second oversight committee seemed credible to me, and the fact that there might be a men in black like secret department, not accountable to Congress or the President of the United States is believable. Maybe I'm just watching too many movies, so why didn't the news of aliens among us, particularly in our oceans, hit the first page of every paper in the world? I think it's because there were no hookers, embezzlement or murder. The first time that the news reports that a little green man was accused of murdering a whistleblower about their affair with another ET while being caught insider trading, it might get elevated to page three. I think the whole ET thing is just too damaging to all of the stories that we've been told about why we're here. Hey, if you bought this story about Haitians eating our pets, you gotta believe in UAPs, I mean right.
Speaker 1:And my last story welcome to Myrtle Beach, where shade is optional. If you live in the Lowcountry or most beach communities on the East Coast, you know how damaging the sun can be, as well as how windy it could get, particularly in the afternoons. Ever since my first visit to the dermatologist as an adult, I've been made perfectly aware of how years in the sun has affected my skin. Most golfers get discolored blemishes removed way before it becomes a real problem. So hats and sunscreen are part of the journey.
Speaker 1:Well, spending time at the beaches requires more than hats and sunscreen. It requires some type of shade. When I moved to the Lowcountry nine years ago, I experienced some windy beach days that lifted and blew my self-augured Tommy Bahama umbrella into other beach goers. So winds are just too strong for these self-screw-in umbrellas. At the same time, I started noticing families constructing tents and other types of sail devices to offer stable shade, particularly when the winds pick up in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:I was taken back by this brand Sh Shibumi sail shade and bought one three summers ago, and it's been the easiest beach shade I've ever owned. It takes five to seven minutes to set up and requires moderate adjustment during the time at the beach when the winds change direction. It's light to carry and also easy to deconstruct when it's time to leave. It is by far the best beach accessory I've ever owned Since I purchased mine. I can see hundreds of like Shibumis up and down Charleston's barrier beaches, and why not? They're easy and effective.
Speaker 1:I mean, what beach wouldn't want their guests to have a safe way to prevent skin cancer or to prevent an unsuspecting guest to get impaled by a traditional beach umbrella during a windy day. Myrtle Beach, myrtle Beach, myrtle Beach Goddamn, motherfuckin' Myrtle Beach. Unfortunately, that's exactly what occurred to a 60-year-old South Carolinian woman in August of 2022 on a beach 20 miles south of Myrtle Beach. What beach wouldn't want to prevent that from ever happening again? You guessed it Myrtle Beach. They ban shibumi shades and other like sail shades, citing that during busy holiday seasons, their lifeguards lose visibility of beachgoers and first responders have a difficult time navigating the beach, and first responders have a difficult time navigating the beach.
Speaker 1:I wonder if Myrtle Beach officials have an interest in local dermatologists or getting a kickback from local hotels that are losing income from renting umbrellas and chairs on the beach. I mean, why not construct higher lifeguard towers and develop no beachgoer laws for emergency personnel and vehicles like you have these paths that are set up where people just can't set up their towels. I think it's a short-sighted idea that serves an interest that has little to do about safety and more to do about payola or maybe I'm just watching too much Matlock, elsbeth and High Potential. You know I don't visit Myrtle Beach for the beaches. I go there for the golf stores and golf courses, as well as fresh markets to load up on their Italian sausage sales. I mean, maybe the beaches do have an overpopulation during the peak season and holidays that might threaten safety. But if not for the only death reported in a 100-mile area from a traditional umbrella that blew into this unsuspecting beachgoer, I might suggest a ban on kite shades. But the fact that they, the community, were the recipients of this horrible accident, I wouldn't work backwards to promote traditional umbrellas. I would work around the newly invented sail-like windshades because they're a far better health solution for beachgoers. Just saying You've been listening to another episode of Tales from the First Tee.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, rich Easton, telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. Talk to you soon, thank you. Thanks for watching.