Gone with the Wyndham

“You want a cart?”

I looked over at the golf pro, then down at my watch. 3:50. The newscast scheduled to begin in seventy minutes would do so with gaping black holes if I didn’t get back to the station soon. Deep inside the fancycam at my side, an optical disc I’d chosen at random now bristled with images: close-ups of a chainsaw spitting woodchips, headshot of some feckless official stuck on perma-drone, an architectural sweep of a few government buildings… Nothing earth-shattering, just the twisted innards of a typical show. I’d traversed the Greater Piedmont all day to collect my debris, until a late day page sent me racing for the links where landscapers and electricians were busy prepping Sedgefield Country Club for next week’s date with the PGA. I’d just finished grilling the golf pro for some on-camera sound when he inquired as to whether I’d need a ride. Apparently he didn’t grasp the brunt of my itinerary, or the number of shots I could accrue from a single tripod spot. No Sir, I had little time to roam the greens in something as silly as a golf cart! Looking up from my watch, I fixed my steeliest gaze on the fella with the polo player on his tit and with white-hot conviction said,

“Sure! That’d be swank!”

Ten minutes later, a leathery man with a rake in his hand nudged his buddy to get out of the way as a golf cart swerved out of nowhere and into their path. Behind the wheel, a furry face with a highway drifter grin plastered on it hunched over eight white knuckles as a wrinkled Hawaiian shirt billowed all around. The two men thought they spotted the glint of a lens at the stranger’s feet, but couldn’t see more due to the plume of fresh grass clippings kicked up by the cart’s silent wake. “Cago en tu leche!” I heard one of them hiss as I tried to press the oversized accelerator through the floor. I don’t know that it made the golf cart go any faster but it sure as hell cleared my head. And isn’t that what golf’s really all about?