Standing on the tee, unaware of the drama and trauma about to unfold, stand Jefe and JC. At this point, in one of the gayest pictures you'll see anywhere, everyone is all smiles.
The 14th plays dramatically downhill, measuring only 491 yards from the back tee. The tee ball is played out of a shoot of trees. The hole wings off to the left. Players challenging the tree line on the left can shave off yards and set themselves up for a go at the green in two. A safer shot to the meaty portion of the fairway, right, means the player will need three shots to get home.
The landing area is rather flat. Most tee balls that successfully challenged the left hand side will end up here, giving the player a shot of roughly 200 yards into the green.
The green is open in the front, allowing a long, low second shot to bounce into the green. The green also has several tiers, and is sloped severely from back to front. JC easily birdied the hole with a tap in, Jefe made a two putt par and GPW struggled with a three wack bogey, which, in a nutshell, accurately sums up the lives of all three.
Take special note of the cart signs promptly displayed in the middle of the fairway, 80 yards from the green. These would become a point of contention as Jefe decided to ignore them and drive his cart some 50 yards further up and to the right, into the trees, rough, and near a creek in search of his lost ball, bringing down upon himself the fire and fury of the player assistant.
GPW will leave you with Jefe's words, describing what happened on that fateful day....
"On the whole it was a chilly but clear day. On the 14th hole, however, as the ranger approached, he seemed to bring a dark cloud with him, as nearly all rangers do. I knew I was ahead of the cart signs. However, I subscribe to George Costanza's advice to Jerry about beating lie detectors, when he said, 'Jerry, it's not a lie if YOU believe it.'
So I went this route and went on the offensive. It's true that I said 'What did I do?!?' except, I knew full what I did, but, come on, I was in the rough and not on the fairway. Rangers are like dogs in that you can't show them fear. You do, and you're toast. When I was seven years old I was attacked by a German Sheppard after trying to outrun it, so I learned this lesson the hard way. I should have turned about face and wrestled that dirty dog to the ground when I had the chance 30 years ago and strangled it with its own collar. I've decided to take that tack with all rangers since that day.
Surprisingly though, the ranger was not reprimanding me for violating the cart sign rule, rather he was telling me to not go over the bridge. I didn't read the sign on the bride because the cart path was positioned such that it seemed very obvious that you SHOULD cross the bridge. As a matter of fact, if you had crossed that bridge, the cart path was right next to the green and there was plenty of room to turn around and re-cross the bridge if there was not an exit. This guy was acting like if I crossed the bridge the cart would drop directly into the firery pits of hell on the other side. I wouldn't have even cared but instead of telling me to not use the bridge he instead had to to ask if I had read the sign, presumably to make me feel stupid and assert his dominance. I obliged, however, and Colton took the cart to the other side while I calmly chalked up another GIR and 2 putted for a routine par after another routine encounter with those blowhards known as Rangers, or, as you might find them at nicer clubs, 'Player Assistants'.
Colton pointed out that maybe rangers are hard on me because they know that someday I will be one of them and this is their hazing of me. This could quite possibly be the case."
-Jefe
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