It
was a hot and sweaty day…
It was a hot and sweaty day; haze
seeping over hills, under clouds, often blacking out the sight of the Met Life
Snoopy balloon and who better to create a lead-in to a parody about
Bulwer-Lytton, other than Snoopy, a cartoonish creation resembling a beagle but
sometimes more creative than a dog famous for howling at the moon.
Alas, Bulwer-Lytton never knew a phrase he couldn’t turn; similar to
Wino Bob never knowing a bottle he couldn’t pour.
My brother-in-law and famous
publisher of WinoStuff.com called on Friday morning to invite Wino Sharon and I
to the PGA golf tourney at Baltusrol. Never
being one to miss an opportunity to sip exotic wines at the Wino John estate on
the mountain, we said yes and headed up to New Jersey.
I took the opportunity to call
Wino John at his capitalist techno dweeb job and asked him if he had received
tickets to a corporate tent so that we could find a respite from the heat wave
encompassing most of the East Coast but particularly centered on Summit, New
Jersey and environs. WJ said that
his buddy had given him grounds admission tickets so we would have to rough it. I told Wino John that I was going to work on something else,
if he didn’t mind.
All of the WinoStuff columnists
have specialties, and golf connections are one of mine.
I picked up the phone and placed a call to a friend of mine with the PGA
(We’ll call him Wino John Doe to protect his identity).
Wino JD returned the call from the PGA tent and I asked if there was a
chance that he could get us an upgrade on our tickets to gain admission and air
conditioning to one of his corporate partners.
“No problem,” said Wino JD. “When
you enter the grounds, go to the guard keeping the riff raff out of our village
and call my tent. We’ll send
someone down there to pick you up.”
We drove up to the WJ estate on
Friday night. WJ broke out the
Colgin Herb Lamb vertical for the guys (and the gals drank some vegetal
Chardonnay which couldn’t hold a candle to Herb Lamb).
It was a great way to start the weekend!
The rest of the story is pretty
good too! The next day we took the
NJ Transit train to Summit and grabbed the shuttle bus to the golf course.
We roamed the grounds at Baltusrol, taking in the sights and a few of our
favorite golfers. Moving over to the tent complex, we made the call to Wino JD
and received a visit from a nice young lady who escorted us up to the PGA
Chalet. We received an upgraded
grounds pass and a wrist bracelet to allow us admission into the Chalet for the
rest of the day. What a deal!
Watching live golf in person, taking a break from the heat and sitting in
the Chalet sipping great wine and eating crabcakes and tenderloin.
Oh, and did I forget to mention, eating Dove Bars whenever we were
overheated from walking on the course?
New Jersey has some monumental
places; golf courses like Baltusrol and Pine Valley (my other favorite golf
course to visit) and individual icons like our own WinoBob.
Wino John and I did not run into Wino Bob at the PGA, but we think we saw
him hawking bottles of water at a roadside stand on the way into the event.
It was a little odd, seeing that stick figure dressed in dark clothes,
stained by perspiration, holding an icy cold bottle of water in one hand and a
Reidel glass stained by Cabernet in the other.
However, the sign “buy a water and help my wine habit” was a dead
giveaway. WB, how much did you take
in today?
Wino Wally
Baltusrol
August 13, 2005
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