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
Is "People" the Most Exhausting Sentence in the English Language?
We explore the fascinating and frustrating ways people just can't help being people, from politicians who succumb to corruption to everyday encounters with the oblivious and selfish.
• The word "people" sometimes functions as a complete sentence, perfectly encapsulating our reaction to selfish or oblivious behavior
• Politicians frequently demonstrate how access to power, influence, and money can lead to corrupt decision-making and criminal charges
• A golf outing with a drunk young player showcases frustrating disregard for etiquette, even when politely confronted
• Our digital photo habits reveal disconnection when we prioritize documenting experiences over living them
• Sports fans often cross lines of decency when alcohol and crowd dynamics embolden them to behave poorly
• Traffic merge lanes serve as perfect litmus tests for human character and consideration
• Self-awareness about our own participation in frustrating behaviors helps us understand the human condition better
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you're tuned into another episode of tales from the first tee. I'm rich easton telling tales from beautiful charleston, south carolina. You know just when I'm convinced there's nothing else to say, life rears its ugly head and I shake my head in disbelief, or maybe acknowledgement that the word people should be a sentence Follow my logic on this. Most every time a politician gets elected to office, the access to power, influence and money inebriate them to make selfish decisions. So here are some examples Kwame Kilpatrick, serving 28 years in prison for racketeering, bribery and extortion. William Jefferson, serving 13 years in prison for racketeering and money laundering. Rod Blagojevich, serving 14 years in prison for attempting to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat when he ran for president and I've heard him interviewed and he said hey, everybody's doing it. Six former world leaders from Guatemala, panama and Brazil prosecuted and jailed for years, and recently former Senator Bob Menendez convicted of 16 counts related to bribery of a foreign agent, $100,000 in gold bars and $486,000 in cash and a luxury Mercedes Benz. And that's just the stuff they found. So it's like every time I read a headline from any media source, I have this internal voice that murmurs the sentence people. You know and I'm talking about celebrities and politicians, but it doesn't have to be them. We're pro athletes. Every day we leave the house we come across somebody that cuts in front of us. Somebody that cuts in front of us, that cuts us off while driving. Or tastes every flavor of ice cream at Jenny's before ordering a scoop of you name it vanilla chocolate, something simple. People that bring their family to an open beach and then, right in front of you, between yourself and the beach park, their 20-foot shade device and monster speakers where they had the entire beach to sit down and look and see. Okay, are we blocking anybody's view? But they do it because that's who they are.
Speaker 1:You ever go into a movie theater. It's not crowded and even though you had to select a seat number which, by the way, I think is ridiculous because everybody violates it and then you get somebody who's a rulesy person and they're gonna get and say, excuse me, I am D10 and D11. And then everybody has to get up because nobody paid attention to the numbers. But you go down, you sit in the movie theater it's yourself and your friend, and it's going to be a quiet movie because it's been out for a few weeks, so it's not a crowded theater. And then, all of a sudden, right before the movie starts. And then, all of a sudden, right before the movie starts, somebody else comes into the theater and do they go to the back? Do they go five aisles behind you? No, they sit two seats next to you or right in front of you and decide to get on their phone the entire movie.
Speaker 1:I mean, who are these people? Now I can continue on about a million more incidents of oblivious or downright selfish behavior, but I'd start to sound like the get off my lawn guy instead, so I'll just leave you with one parting sentence that sums it up. People, you know I might as well stick with this theme for the remainder of the episode. This segment is Drunk.
Speaker 2:Gen Xer on the golf course the other pros were going out to the driving range going watch this and he's hitting the ball 75 yards past everybody and hitting the middle of the fairway with it. But he was so self-destructive that he could manage it to some point Not too long ago.
Speaker 1:I'm playing golf with my friend, cloudy Graves, one of the more emotive low handicappers, with a southern saying for just about everything. I've only lived in the south for 10 years and if you don't count Florida as a southern state which I don't well, that's not true. The ones that move to Florida and then live there for a few years and move up to the Carolinas, they're Southerners. So even though I wasn't raised in the South, after just one round of golf with Cloudy I've witnessed a lifetime of sayings for just about any situation. So I feel somewhat baptized. Baptized, and what that does? It prepares me.
Speaker 1:When we're paired up with a drunk Gen Zer and his dad to play a round of golf, the outing on the links starts off just like most we meet we shake hands, we share our names and then we forget about their names, about the time it takes us to get to the first green. I'm guessing the dad had to be, let's say, nearly 70. His son in his 30s. One of my downfalls when I play with other golfers is I study their swings. I could just about describe every one of my buddies' golf swings, but I can't describe my own. So, as we're playing with these two golfers. I see the dad is struggling. I don't think he was much of a golfer when he was younger and I think it stayed with him his whole life. His son seemed like he was very athletic and so I asked him hey, did you ever play baseball? And he said well, actually I played pro baseball and immediately I knew it. You could see with his swing. First of all, his practice swings were so fast that you could hear the club piercing through the air, and when he got hold of a drive it was the loudest crack sound and the ball flew farther than any drive I've seen other than going to PGA tournaments. So I thought this was going to be a fun round.
Speaker 1:This guy is pretty good, except for one thing when he took his club back, his elbow went out just like a baseball player. And when you stick your elbow out and you take the club back, it is nearly impossible to tuck that elbow in when you swing the club, which means that the times you do get it under, you are going to crack that ball and you're going to drive it 300 plus yards. But if that elbow stays out, you might hit it 300 yards, but you're going to meet the neighbors, which he did several times Now. He rode with his dad and his dad teed off with us and maybe hit the ball 150 yards.
Speaker 1:Sometimes he dribbled it off the tee box by the time we got to the third hole, the Gen Zer, after his dad hit the ball, would drive his dad to his ball and then proceed to go forward all the way down the fairway to find his ball. This means that he would drive past where Cloudy Graves and I hit our drives and he would stand there and wait for us to hit our shots and make his dad walk all the way up to him. Sometimes he basically let his dad have the cart and he would run down the fairway looking for his ball.
Speaker 1:Now I've played with Cloudy and we've been passed by this guy who has an electric push cart, you know, the kind that you could direct with remote control. And this guy passed us in the middle of one of our holes and Cloudy did the right thing. He went up to him and told him what he felt about this guy interrupting our round of golf, you know. But the funny thing is I have played with Cloudy since that event and something's changed, like he doesn't do that anymore Now. Is it because he got the cutest dog in the world Cash that he takes on the golf course with him kind of settles his nerves? I don't know the answer, but this guy is running up ahead of us. I look at Cloudy no reaction and I'm like can you believe this guy? Now?
Speaker 1:The problem for us is now we've got to hit our second shots and we got to hit it to the green or we got a position or a par five, and Gen Z is right in front of us. Let's call him z for the rest of this discussion. So now z's down the fairway ahead of us. We gotta hit shots. It almost reminds me of the time at one of my favorite golf courses when they were fixing the bunkers and they had all of these workers working on the bunkers, but they didn't close the course. So there are bunkers and they had all of these workers working on the bunkers, but they didn't close the course.
Speaker 1:So there are bunkers, sometimes situated right in front of greens, and these workers were told to stay in the bunkers and work while people are hitting balls. Well, you're 100 yards out. You're 150 yards out. You've got to hit a ball up and over their heads and land it on the green, and if you're antsy or you skull the ball, I mean you could take somebody's life. So that's what this reminded me of, and every shot that I hit, with Z in front of me, I get a little nervous. I didn't want to hit him and it was making me crazy, but Cloudy didn't want to do anything. It's like this new Cloudy has emerged amongst us. I even said to him I go, hey, cloudy, I go. Do we want to talk?
Speaker 1:to this guy and he's like, no, hey, listen, man, let's let you know, live and let live. And I'm like, hey, that's not a Southern expression. You know, live and let live. And I'm like, hey, that's not a Southern expression. But anyway I'm like, okay.
Speaker 1:So we get to the fourth hole, we hit our drives and then we land. It's a par five. We land them down in the fairway and then we go to hit our second shots. We decide we're a little too far back to go, 230 yards over the water. So we both decide to lay our balls up in front of this lake, protecting this green. But when you lay your ball up and you get it a little too close, you kind of go over this hill and you can't see if the ball rolled down the hill onto this level area, maybe even into the pond, you can't tell until you drive your ball up there. So we hit our shots and of course Z is running down the fairway to find his ball, because he hit his ball there as well. Didn't have a great drive, but he had a monster second shot. So he's running down there. His dad's got the cart Cloudy and I hit our shots and now we're driving up to find it and we drive up to the hill. There were no balls there. Now Cloudy was pretty certain that he hit his ball perfectly so that it didn't go in the water. And he looks over at Z, who had just moved over to the side, who said, oh, I guess my ball went in the water. And he goes hey, z, did you see a tidalist there with three red dots? And Z said, yeah, I found it right over there. It was right before the water.
Speaker 1:Now, for any or all of you listening to this and know Cloudy, you're likely thinking at what point did Cloudy introduce one of his witty bromizer aphorisms to influence C to stop driving in front of us before we hit? You might be surprised to learn the answer was never. And Cloudy goes well, you know, that was my shot. And the guy goes oh, here you go. And he throws it to Cloudy. I'm waiting for Cloudy to get apoplectic. Cloudy puts his ball down, hits a great shot onto the green, misses a birdie, but, but no change in attitude at all and I'm like what is happening?
Speaker 1:So we get back in the cart and I go to cloudy. I go hey, what's man? I go. Have you been going to church a lot. Is that what this is all about? And Cloudy goes hey listen, man, he goes. When I'm in church, he goes, everything is great. But the minute I get in the parking lot after church, I have got to control myself until next Sunday. So I'm like, okay, this guy's working on himself, but Z is still bothering me and I just don't want to see this guy work on both my and Cloudy's impatience. So I go to Cloudy, I'm going to talk to this guy when we get to the fifth tee box. So we get to the fifth tee box, I don't want to embarrass him, I don't want to make him feel bad, and I'm like, hey, z, you got a second. I pull him aside. And this is kind of how the conversation went. I said, hey Z, I'm really nervous he goes.
Speaker 1:Man, what's your and Z is drinking, drinking, you could smell he must have had five beers between the first hole and the fifth, d bucks and he's like man, what are you worried about?
Speaker 1:and I go hey, listen, I'm really nervous. I go, you have these monster drives and you hit that ball so far that I know you're anxious to go see where that ball is. You want to hit it again. And I said but when you do that, you're now between us and our approach shots. And what makes me nervous is if I hit a bad shot and it hits you, I am going to feel horrible the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:And he goes hey man, if you hit me, that's my fault. I go, I know, but it doesn't make me feel any better. So if you could help me out with my anxiety and if you could wait until we all hit our shots before you go up to your ball, I go God, that would make me feel so much better. And he goes okay, old man. He said old man. And I'm like I'm ready to duke it with him, but he would take me out in one punch. So instead I'm like great. So we go on for the next five, six, seven, we get to the back nine and I am like God, I feel so good about myself for communicating something to try and help us and him at the same time, but by the time we get to the 13th, 14th hole, he's doing it again.
Speaker 1:And I just look at Glaudy and I'm like, hey man, let's just get through the round and let's get out of here. So sometimes it doesn't matter what you say. Certain people are just going to be people, foot-dragging, photo finders oh my god, will you hurry up? When I was a kid, before social media or smartphones, we took photos and had to wait for them to be developed before we got the pleasure of recapturing the moments. If the photos were taken on vacation or a special trip, my dad would have slides made and, when developed, would put them in his long rectangular slide holder to be inserted in his slide projector for a night of laughs and memories projector for a night of laughs and memories. The carousel wasn't invented yet and even if it had been, my dad didn't have that kind of money to buy another one because he would say I mean, richard, why waste the money when we have perfectly good projector right here? He didn't sound like that, but I thought that was funny. Sometimes, when friends or family visited, my dad would set up the projector and the white screen to share their vacation with those not fortunate enough to make the trips. Or sometimes they'd have a couple's party where those couples were also on the trip so they could sit around and laugh and call each other names and go oh Marv, look at you, you're eating again. Well, because of the infrequency of these slideshows, people could put up with a 30-minute show, particularly if they were in the pictures.
Speaker 1:Now, fast forward. The digital age changed how we take pictures, store them and how we share them. Those parties where people to get together and look at slides of themselves. That's over. I mean, people have Facebook, people are texting photos. People no longer get together because everybody is living in a moment and that moment has to do with what we see now and pictures we took yesterday. It also allows us to humble, brag our lives and sometimes send out dog whistles or bat signals to alert others that we're in the same area, to possibly connect and find each other. Most of us store thousands of photos on our devices, which causes that awkward moment when they want to share a photo with us when we're standing next to them, and it kind of goes like this. So I was at the Credit One Stadium the other night to see Dave Matthews. We were three rows from the front of the stage. Hold on, hold on. You got to see these pictures, so they start flipping through their picks.
Speaker 2:No, no, that's not it. No, no, wait, wait, wait, shit. No, it's got to be wait. Hold on a second. Oh, this is a no that's not it.
Speaker 1:30 seconds ensues and it feels like five minutes still no photos, and which kind of brings up a bigger question of why are we going to an entertainment venue standing three feet from the stage and holding our phones up in the air to record it? I mean, how often are we going to go back and look at that? And how is that quality going to be better than putting your phone down and staring 10 yards in front of you to see one of your favorite musicians do what they do best and take in the entire musicality of the event? Do we get that much street cred from posting these Like look everybody, look where I went last night and if you went also, look how cool we are. How can we immerse ourselves in the music if we're constantly looking up to see that our phones are focused on what we want to focus it on?
Speaker 1:Hey, and I am 100% guilty of doing this, I have at occasion, in the middle of a concert, wanted to record it just to show people. Look at me, I'm not sitting on the couch, look at me, I'm not sitting on the couch. And when did 2,000 viewers all of a sudden become the official videographers for Dave Matthews? So getting back to this, so my friend is flipping through his phone trying to show me this photo and, by the way, once they find the photo or video to show us how close they were, I've lost total interest and hope I don't have to suffer through another five minutes to see another lost pic of the concert night. You for your attention and then scrolling and scrolling to find a pick and then finally finding it, giving you their phone. And, by the way, when they give you their phone it's timed out. Now you got to put their face in front of the phone to open it back up again. There's something about it that makes me want to get on my phone and start scrolling on my social media like a dinner table of millennials. What you think is something that will connect the two of you. By waiting five minutes to find that photo, it becomes a social disconnector and, like I said, we all do it. But I'm just saying let's all be aware of it.
Speaker 1:I just wonder if the chronic look at my pick people are the same people that stand in front of you at Jenny's ice cream and sit there and sample every flavor, while 10 people behind you are in line and they're sitting there on their phones, probably looking for a photo, until you finally order that scoop and maybe you're going to order the special, but most likely people end up going back to their regular flavor that they like. Look, it's okay to stand in line. There's nobody in the shop and people that are scooping ice cream. They're fine with it. You know they'll give you as many flavors as you want. They're getting paid by the hour. They're not making commission on their ice cream. It's just when you have a line of people behind you. You just have to be a little sensitive, just like if you're going to ask somebody to look at your pick, find it first or know where it is, and that might be a really good conversation, a laugh and a connection between you and somebody else. Otherwise, you just fall in the outfield.
Speaker 2:DUI, dui, dui, dui. What are you talking about? Why is porn stash asshole? What are we saying? We want bodies. It's his mom's name, oh wow. It's his mom's name, oh wow.
Speaker 1:Last week, a nameless Gen Z fan who heckled the Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman, cattell Marte, was thrown out of the Chicago White Sox rate field and banned from all major league games for life. There's no better place to underscore my point about the flip side of humanity's coin than at a sporting event. I mean, when you purchase a ticket to a live sporting event, or any event, what does it give you the right to do? No, you can't yell fire, bring firearms, incent a riot or cause physical harm to others, although we see it in the stands all the time. Look, the First Amendment protects your rights to express yourself without government interference, but it does that to a point. But it does that to a point. I mean, most of society is our own guardian.
Speaker 1:Anybody who's been punched in the nose for questionable behavior know that there are consequences for behavior or speech that insults, threatens or fiercely overreaches lines of value. And those who haven't been punched in the nose, like Karen's or Ted Cruz they shouldn't be, but they're always surprised with the reaction they get from people Just like this, gen Zer, from Chicago, who reminded second baseman Cattel Marte about his mother, elpidia Valdez, who died in a car accident in the Dominican Republic. This 22-year-old piece of garbage didn't have the sense to know the difference between acceptable ranking and unacceptable personal attacks, particularly in a public setting. I mean, if this kid were in a room with Cattell Marte and said what he said when he was in the stands, cattell would be on trial for aggravated assault. But most people in stands when they're drinking and yelling shit are not the same people face-to-face with somebody, because they all have one thing in common they're cowards.
Speaker 1:And why does an alcohol-induced public setting give some people the courage to yell hateful things at pro athletes? I don't know. Have we bred that over time or is it just one thing? People From the kids who went to Hooters after school we're all triggered and defensive. We're all racist and we're sexist. We all grew up watching South Park. How are we offended Now? Being fat is beautiful. Name a thing that you can't do.
Speaker 2:Jumping jacks run a mile, live past 42.
Speaker 1:I think the common lane merge, where two lanes merge into one, is another great litmus test for people. If you ever go to the beaches in Charleston after 10 am on a weekend, particularly a holiday weekend, you know that most likely you're going to be caught up in traffic Now we're not talking LA, new York, dc, chicago or Philly traffic, but for a small, albeit growing community, it gets generally congested at times, and that's because the beaches have limited parking.
Speaker 1:So it's first come, first park until all the spaces are filled. Now the islands are spacious enough to accommodate most vehicles on most days, but holiday weekends, man, that's a different story, and the longer you wait, the farther from the beach you'll park, and if you carry chairs, shade, refreshments, towels and reading or writing material, you're going to want the shortest distance from your car to the beach. I happened to visit the beach the Sunday before July 4th, thinking that it was five days before the beaches got hectic and it was a perfect beach day. And boy was I wrong. In my last episode I talked about my Camp Richie day this Sunday, was it? I was on a mission to accomplish six things on Sunday, one of which was to go to the beach and write the last episode of Tales Not just any episode, but the first in seven months. So I was eager to arrive, set up my stuff and start the process.
Speaker 1:There are only two roads that lead to Sullivan's and Isle of Palms. There is the IOP connector and the Ben Sawyer. That's it, unless you have a boat, you're not getting there unless you go over either of those two roads. So after I take care of Sammy, get her on her walk and do my half hour swim not in the ocean because I'm still scared of sharks I get my car. It's around 10 o'clock, I decide to go down this road off of 17 called Rifle Range. It's a small oak tree covered road that is parallel to the beach, is parallel to 17. And it will take you to those two beach roads that lead on to the barrier islands. So I'm heading down Rifle Range thinking I'm just going to get to the IOP Connector, like I always do, go over the bridge there and then decide which of the two islands I want to go to.
Speaker 1:As I'm getting up to the light to the IOP Connector Road, I can see that it is bumper-to-bumper traffic already and you're talking about a three-mile road from that point all the way to the barrier island bumper-to-bumper. And then I looked over to the right cars coming from 17, also bumper-to-bumper. So I decide there's no way I'm going to Isle of Palms and there's no way I'm going on the IOP connector. So light turns green, I'm able to cross the road. I look to the right, I just see a lot of unhappy cars to the right. I see a lot of cars traffic to the left and I keep going down rifle range road and you know what the traffic is moving. So I'm thinking, hey, am I the smartest guy in the world? Probably not. And I keep going, and I keep going a few miles. Finally I get to the Ben Sawyer and this is the road that takes you to Sullivan's Island, and I could see there's a little bit of traffic. But as I get to the corner, I get right up to the light and I'm able to make a left-hand turn far better than what I saw in the connector.
Speaker 1:As soon as I make the turn, I see there are two lanes. I know that one of them is a merge lane. These merge lanes are human litmus tests. To observe one, those who either think they're smarter than others or are just in such a hurry, and then those who accept that traffic is going to be what it is. So get in the lane that is merged into and don't be the aggressor or the guy who plays dumb, rushing to the very end of the merge lane and then starts waving to people to cut in. Or the worst is, those that don't even acknowledge you and just slip in. You know what.
Speaker 1:I have been guilty of both, and some of us have. It depends on who I'm driving with, how desperate I am to get to the beach and how much coffee I've had that morning. On this particular morning, I had two cups of Cuban's Finest, so I was really in a hurry. All of this affected my judgment. I make the left turn onto the Ben Sawyer which takes us to Sullivan's. It's slow and stop. Traffic on the left and the right lane is a lot faster, so I merge into that lane and then I start passing cars on the left Five, 10, 15, 20. I'm starting to feel guilty. I don't want to be that guy who goes to the very end of the merge lane and then starts to cut in. Nobody likes that guy.
Speaker 1:So I start looking for an opening, put my left blinker on, open my window and start to merge. The SUV that I was merging in front of seemed to have a full family of beachgoers. When I saw the opening, I opened my window, looked at the SUV, asked to merge, but I wasn't getting any response from the driver, because it looks like the driver and the co-pilot looks like parents of the kids were having some kind of argument and the gap kept getting bigger between them and the car in front of them. So I slip in, I do a thumbs up and I look at them to show them I'm appreciative. The dad sees me and basically shoots me the bird. I'm like okay, guy's, not a Charlestonian, but I did the right thing. There was a gap. I waved, I thanked, I did all of the niceties, albeit I was definitely trying to jump in line.
Speaker 1:So now the lane I'm in the left lane is moving at a turtle's pace and the right lane that I came from was moving faster. Perhaps this right lane was all turning right into this private gate, guarded community Marsh Harbor. And, as I was looking forward, no, that wasn't the case. They were just like me, but even more aggressive. They were shoehorning themselves at the end of the merge lane, 500 feet ahead, 500 feet ahead. At first I'm thinking, motherfucker, they must be Northeasterners. And as soon as I thought that, I realized, okay, I'm also one of them I came to terms with the realization that I also skirted down the road to the merge lane after 30 cars. So how was I any different? I'll tell you how they had the balls to be inconsiderate for an additional 30 cars. So how was I any different? I'll tell you how they had the balls to be inconsiderate for an additional 30 cars than I did.
Speaker 1:As the left lane was getting closer to the end of the right merge lane, less drivers were being humane about helping their fellow beach goers merge. It's likely because they already witnessed too many arrogant mergers shoehorn into their lane and then had the nerve to let others merge in front of them. Which brings up another question in my mind what is the proper etiquette for the mergee and the merger? All right, let me share the definitions first. The mergee is the car already in the lane of traffic. The merger is the car trying to merge in to the mergee's lane. According to most everything I've read and my 50 plus years of experience on the road, the mergee has final decision on who and when they let someone cut in front of them. Once a merger enters the lane, they now become a future mergee. That means that every car you allow cut in front of you now has the same rights for allowing other cars to cut in front of them. Now there's no way to profile people when you let them in front of you.
Speaker 1:Usually, the reality is that a car you allow merge might pay it forward to one car. So if that's the case, why wouldn't the guy in front of me, the guy behind me or even myself let any more cars merge in our lane after I merged? And I think there's a point of the merge lane where people just take it too far and really try and game the system. So I say, screw them. They're trying to game the polite Charleston beach-going population and I'm not going to participate in their rude and selfish behavior. And you might think, yeah, rich, but they let you merge. And my response would be yes, yes, they did. Another reason to love Charleston People. Thanks for staying to the end. You've been listening to another episode of Tales from the First Tee. I'm your host, rich Easton, telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. Talk to you soon, thank you.