How I Played at Sedgefield and Infuriated the Rednecks

When I was an associate at my first law firm in Greensboro, NC, in 1986 or so, I played in a golf tournament. It was a big deal: members of Sedgefield Country Club invited guests to play. There was wagering. There was a big dinner at the end. One got a collection of four glasses, where at my house only one of which survives and is seldom used.

I would never have been there if my own contact, Bill Wilcox, a tax and corporate law associate of about my vintage, but with a CPA and brains, had a client whose name now escapes me. Let’s say his name was Aaron Wentz. He was enormous, each leg as big as my chest, taller than I by six inches. He had played on the defensive line at North Carolina State. He was a good golfer. At the time I had no idea what his business was, or why Wilcox worked for him, and I’m less informed today.

Anyway, Bill Wilcox was the member, and he invited Aaron Wentz to play, and he accepted. At the last minute, Bill had some other client with an emergency and couldn’t play so asked me to. I thought that was awfully nice of him as I wasn’t a partner and had no power. He could have asked anyone.

This is especially true as a lot of the guys at that firm played golf. They knew I played. But no one ever invited me to go out with them. That’s the South for you, as previously noted.

Sedgefield was a magnificent course; the PGA staged its Open tournament there on occasion. There’s no other way I would be allowed to step onto that course. It was in the spring, and, really, the azaleas may be the best part about the South: such blazing colors, and when they’re all grouped together, it’s a kaleidoscope.

When I appeared, Aaron gazed at me in despair. I didn’t own golf shoes, considering them a luxury when I was a teacher, so I played in sneakers. They’d always served me well. My clubs were old and way out of fashion. I didn’t own loud shirts or pants and forget what I actually wore to play on this fancy golf course, but, as I think of it, I wonder if I may have scrounged up some khakis and a polo shirt. Aaron, with the confidence of a defensive lineman at a Division I school, wore shorts that revealed his massive thighs.

The game was captains’ choice, which meant that we both took a shot, and Aaron, as of course the captain, chose whose shot we’d use as the spot from which to take the next shot. I think we used my shot about four times all weekend, and not entirely because his shot was always best. In all sincerity, he was kind of an asshole.

But I had one moment of glory, one I could have predicted. My short game and my fairway woods were always excellent. On maybe the 8th hole, I encountered a par 3, in which the hole was about 200 yards from the tee. Our opponents stood sullenly off at the side while I felt confident for a change. This was something I could do. I gingerly pulled my 5 wood out of the bag, treating it with the respect it deserved, unlike that jerk 2 iron (only God can hit a 2 iron is the saying, and, yeah). I hit a high, long shot, and it hung in the air like an odd day star, white, glittering, and then it fell, plop, stop, right next to the hole.

Our opponents did not like this. Who was I to hit this shot? Aaron whooped, and we had a 2, a birdie, on the hole.

A couple of holes later, it was the 10th, where a lot of men were gathered—why, I’m not sure. There should have been a continuous group teeing off of each hole, no pile-up at 10. Anyway, apparently, news must have travelled like a nasty fast slice.

Behind the tee stood a group of glowering men. They were particularly of a type in the south: insurance agents, car dealers, rednecks who have made it good. They were overweight, red-faced, with the glowing clothes I didn’t have, red pants, blue shirts, and hats, lots of hats, floppy, baseball, fedoras. They glared at me; I heard someone say, “That’s him.”

I naively didn’t understand what had happened, but Aaron whispered to me, “Now would be a good time to hit one into the woods.”

I nodded; this I could do. I used to have a terrible slice, that is, where one’s tee shot starts off straight and then veers wildly to the right, typically into the rough or maybe even a sand trap or some water. To counteract this, my father had taught me how to turn my left wrist over on the club; it straightened my slice out perfectly. There were woods on the left. So, of course, if I turned my left wrist ever farther over on the club, I would create a hook—where the ball would fly off of my club far to the left.

This I could do, and, sure enough, my ball flew off into the woods. I manufactured a fake laugh to signify, Well, that’s me all right! That birdie on 8 was a ridiculous fluke. Nothing to see here!

The rednecks didn’t stir; like today’s right wing, they probably disbelieved what they’d just seen; that was fake news, and I was still a sandbagger. Aaron and I marched off down the fairway; he didn’t say anything to me.

We won our group, no doubt due to Aaron’s excellent play. At the end, there was a dinner, and Aaron brought his wife, a tall blonde with big hair and enormous breasts, all on display. The dinner was excellent, a seafood buffet that must have cost the members quite an amount. We ate, making desultory small talk, and I never saw Aaron again. Absolutely none of the conversation comes to mind. Aaron never said thanks or good golf or anything at all.

Recently I emailed Bill Willcox about the tournament, and he had no memory of giving the spot away to me. So I must, in the end, have managed not to offend anyone too much. So there’s that.

But I will never ever forget that line of glaring rednecks, leaning over on their drivers, glaring right at me, and the person who said, “That’s him.”

Why did they care? I wasn’t cheating. Aaron wrote me down as an 18 handicap, which meant that I would score one over par on each hole. When I was teaching back at Auburn, playing golf during summer school, I was more of a 12 handicap at worst. But now, with years between me and the last round I’d played, I probably deserved more of a handicap. But those guys still didn’t trust me.

At some point, Bill Wilcox brought me an envelope with my winnings--$25 maybe?

I think I get it now, and it’s stupid how obvious it was. Where I bet $5 just as a lark, those guys gathered around the 10th tee had who knows how much at stake. A guy coming in with an 18 handicap doesn’t hit a shot like that. I was a sandbagger.

Consider the sight that I made: as I say, I don’t remember what clothes I wore, but they couldn’t have been standard issue redneck golf clothing. And I wore tennis shoes, for god’s sake. And I had a beard. And long hair. I may as well have been an atheist hippie with the number “666” across my teeshirt. I was clearly an outsider, a Yankee. Nothing further, Your Honor.

Maybe they thought that I was trying to look like a duffer, but, in reality, I was a pro at some golf course up North and was just playing them for rubes. I was so good that I didn’t even need proper golf shoes or up-to-date clubs. What a no-good lying bastard I was.

Sedgefield Country Club, where they're still talking about that shot I hit on 8.