Bowlers Golfing for High Stakes – Bowling Memoirs of Johnny Petraglia

I know this is supposed to be a bowling blog, but this time I’m going to tell a golf story…with bowlers.

I was playing a round of golf with Dick Weber, Dave Davis, and Dave Soutar. We were playing a game called, “Barkies, Crabbies and Ducks.” The Barkies are trees, the Crabbies are sandtraps, and the Ducks are water. The way the game works is we keep track of all the trees, sand traps, and water the entire round. Whoever hits the last tree, sand trap, or water has to pay the 3 other players for all the trees, traps or water hit that day.

On this particular day, for some reason we decided to play for high stakes. We played for $1.00 per tree, trap, or water hit. We normally play for a quarter or less because this game can get very expensive. The real interesting part of this game is you never know when the last tree, trap, or water is going to be. It could be on the last hole or the 11th hole. On this particular day, going into the 18th hole, I was caught for the 17 trees hit that day, and Dick Weber was caught for the 15 sandtraps we went in. So at that point I’m losing $51.00; $17.00 to each player. Weber is losing $45.00, or $15.00 to each player.

The 18th green was set back in the trees and guarded by a sandtrap on each side. Soutar is in the middle of the fairway 150 yards from the green. At this point he should be using his putter and hitting it up the middle of the fairway. But Soupy was having a good round and wanted to end with a par. So he hits his approach shot. As soon as he hit it I knew I was off the hook for the trees. The ball was going left directly into a tree. It hits the tree dead center and drops straight down into the greenside sand trap. So that’s the 18th tree hit and the 16th sandtrap hit – times three! On one swing of the club Soupy loses $102.00. Soupy collapses in the middle of the fairway. Weber, Davis, and myself are hysterical, and the three of us don’t let him off the hook. We all just putt up toward the green.

I know writing it is not as funny as being there. But until this day, it’s still one of the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on a golf course. You should know that almost all the bowlers on tour play golf, and I could write as many golf stories as bowling stories. Next month I’ll go back to bowling.

cento anni’…Johnny Petraglia

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