CART PATH ONLY

BY DR. MOUNCE

Summer golf in North Carolina can be brutal, and I generally decline opportunities to ‘walk a round’. Of course, given that my camouflage bag came standard with a frosty beverage cooler on the front, an air-tight chamber near the top for the preservation of long-forgotten stogies, and doesn’t stand up on its own, I don’t really have a choice. I prefer my golf excursions riding with Alexa grooving out Margaritaville-tunes. On a recent night, before a morning round, I slept soundly to dreams of prodigious captain’s choice drives. So soundly, in fact, I never heard the storms that rumbled through.

The 8:30 AM tee time arrived quickly. Triple digit heat indexes and temporary greens meant the course was virtually abandoned. As I hoisted my loaded bag out of the back of my

old X-Terra, sweat was already beading down my forehead, and mosquitoes were flittering around in the air. It didn’t matter. Walking up the hill, the sun peeking out from behind the clubhouse, my prospects for a day full of reckless abandon ball striking were high. That is, until I saw the sign. That awful sign that filled me with as much dread as seeing ‘early release day’ flash mockingly on the elementary school billboard. It stared down at me in giant all-caps letters: CART PATH ONLY.

That’s the day I learned a new kind of golf.

“If we have to walk this is going to be torture!” my cart-mate Johnny lamented.

“What can we do?” I said.

Sure enough, if necessity is the mother of invention, then Par 4 Hole 1: dogleg right, lake on the left; the green at the end of the fairway an easy iron from the fairway on the right.

The play? Find the rough on the far left, as close to the cart path as possible. If you splash down, drop near the path.

Next shot: Trees along the cart path left of the fairway. Woods right of the fairway.

The play? Hit it close to the cart path, park, and start chipping towards the temporary green.

And so it went. All shots zeroed in on the paths, the carts saved the day, and fun was had by all.

So, the next time the skies open the night before your round, don’t sweat it. Just tell your friends you’re playing cart path only.

Dr. Mounce is a professor that lives with his family, dog, goldfish, and plants in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. So many of his golf shots ended up in the wilderness he started writing bigfoot books, which you can check out at squatching.com. He also podcasts with his friends about lake monsters and aliens at allthings-unexplained.com. Despite actively going all-out at sand volleyball and clay-court tennis, he also loves the simple joy that is riding around in a golf cart. Dr. Mounce would love to hear from you on social media (FB & IG@ dr.mounce & @allthingsunexplainedpodcast; Twitter @drmounce1 & @atunexplained), and you can whoop at him by emailing the_bigfoot@yahoo. com.

Dr. Mounce hiking in DuPont State Forest, North Carolina.