Epic Meltdowns

I got to thinking today about all the meltdowns I have seen in my life. Many of them have been on the golf course so I think thats where my focus will be in this post. The sport of golf seems to attract a lot of nut cases including myself. Meltdowns inevitably are apart of the game.

Lets set the stage for Epic Meltdown #1. As a college golfer our team was fortunate enough to be invited by UCLA to their event in Northern California. Now this was my Junior year of college and needless to say I hadnt seen much PT so I was exited to get out there and play good. The seen is the 2nd round of the UCLA event and the characters involved include one Mr Josh DuPont and myself. Now I hesitate to name drop but in this case Mr DuPont earned himself the right to be named in my epic meltdown post. Right when I walked to the first tee and meet my playing partners for the day I could tell it was going to get interesting. Mr DuPont had a limp bizkit hand shake and thats never a good sign and he was wearing glasses and popped collar also never a great look. So off we go into the 2nd round of play......

During the event the officials were cracking down on slow play. Needless to say my group found itself 2 holes behind after just 8 holes of play in this 2nd round. Now this was going to earn us a nice little 2 stroke penalty and having chopped it around the first day I was not looking to tack on 2 more shots to my score or the teams score, although I guess that season it really would not have made much difference. So I decided that after I finished the 8th hole I would run up the hill to the 9th tee with one of the guys in my group and tee off so we could get moving while the other 2 guys including mr DuPont and my teamate finished play on the 8th green. Now generally speaking what I did is not good etiquette but as my former college coach would say "fuck it go hit". So I ran up the hill a good 200 yards away from the 8th green, teed off, pulled my ball left into the hazard and let loose a few expletives. Needless to say right as I did this Mr DuPont who I was playing with was lining up to putt on 8. I guess he was not exactly please by what had happened and as I looked back I could hear him yelling something about wanting to kill me. Well he casually misses his putt on 8 which was pretty much a given at this point and runs up the hill to 9 tees off and proceeds to rip me a new one all the way down to the fairway on 9. I just remember a lot of F bombs and me wanting to toss his ass into a hazard but somehow I refrained with the help from my teammate. Now the important thing to remember here is no coaches are around during this incident so they have no clue what has happened when they run into us a few holes later.

Needless to say I was a little bit rattled about having my life threatened and getting yelled at for 15 minutes. I finally had enough of it told him to go fuck off and finish the round. I think I came home in 41 on the back 9 to shoot 77 on the day. I get home that night and my buddy who transferred from our school to an east coast school calls me up wondering why the hell I suck so bad and shot 41 on the back 9. Well I explained to him that Mr DuPont and I had a run in and how he kinda lost his mind and had a meltdown on me. Well my buddy thinks it might be best if Mr. DuPonts coach finds out about all this thats transpired. So he decides to write an email acting like he had been there and witnessed the whole ordeal. Now remember this friend of mine is on the east coast over 3000 miles away! So I have saved the email which he wrote on my behalf and I leave it for you to read below:

"Coach:
Yesterday afternoon I was out watching you boys play at the Cordevalle Collegiate in Northern California when I saw something that truly made me question the purity of intercollegiate athletics. In a bit of frustration and immaturity, I witnessed your player, Josh Dupont, threaten and verbally assault another player from Blank Blank University. After missing a short putt, your player pointed his putter at his competitor, screamed profanities, and even referred to his playing partner as a "Fucking Faggot." In all my years having been around the game of golf, never once have I been more disgusted with the actons of such an athlete. This individual showed a complete lack of respect, dignity, class, and reverence for the sport, the beautiful facility, and the spectators out enjoying the thrill of college competition. Now I have always thought of Northwestern University to represent strong character and moral fiber, but after witnessing these antics, I am beginning to think otherwise. I thought your player disgraced himself, your fine institution, and above all else, college golf. Perhaps somebody needs to sit him down and remind him that participating at such a level is a privilege, not a right. Im sorry for intruding, but I felt compelled to write on this matter because I just cannot seem to get the incident to scape my thoughts. I feel as if the greatest act of character I have witnessed in a long time was watching that individual from Blank Blank University shake your players hand after the round, despite the fact that he was insulted in such a degrading manner. I wish you nothing but the best tomorrow and for the rest of the season, and hope that your player understands that what he did was completely disgusting and classless.
- Gary Landon"

Now obviously Gary Landon is not my friends name so we figured we were in the clear. The next day I get to the event and I am warming up on the putting green. I can see the coach from Northwestern reading an email on his phone so I figure hes seeing what Mr "Gary Landon" wrote. Well what "Gary Landon" forgot was that the email he sent was attached to his real name and the account he uses for sending real not fake emails and the Northwestern coached realized this. Anyways a fiasco ensued and in the end I got a half hearted apology from Mr. Dupont.


Meltdowns seem to happen at just the right time. What I mean by right time is the exact wrong time with plenty of people watching to recount the tale days, months, and even years later. One such incident happened to myself. It had been a long day on the course at Silver Creek Valley Country Club with my college team. I had been grinding all day trying to qualify for our next tournament. I was doing ok and came to the last hole which was actually the 9th hole at this course. Well I hit an ok tee shot but my ball disappeared in the fairway it must have plugged or something weird but we never found it. Not a happy camper i trudge back up to the tee and rope hooked a 3 wood left and make a 7 to miss qualifying by 1. Now when I get to the green everyone is finished except me because I had to run back and hit another ball. Im steaming but doing an ok of holding it in. Well im not sure what set me off but as im walking off the 9th green i decide to carefully remove my shoulder straps and hold my golf bag like a punter holds a football. I took a mighty swing with my leg and punted my entire 30lbs golf bag into a hedge right in front of the clubhouse. Well a broken driver and a few days later I still had teammates wondering if I was mentally stable. I also tended to like to throw things right as my coach would appear and see me do it. I think I wrote a letter to most of the coaches in out conference apologizing for throwing a ball or fuck bomb around.

It seems on college teams and not just golf teams but all sports teams people tend to just get sick of each other after while. We had an incident that almost came to blows one day at Eagle Ridge Golf Club . The incident left two guys really pissed at each other and another teammate huddled up crying on the 4th green. Also sometimes coaches loose their shit too especially when their players decide to tell them they are missing practice 2 hours before hand or cant show up on time to save their life. Now a real golf meltdown may have been watching Bill Slowski 10 putt the 6th green at the Fresno City Championship. Your wondering how crazy was that green or that pin location. It was pretty flat and the 10 putt included a couple times where my boy Bill hit the ball while it was still moving. In a heroic achievement Bill birded the next hole so his score card read 3-13-3 for holes 5-6-7.

The greatest golf meltdown of all time has got to be watching a kid in high school golf loose 13 balls on one hole and then toss his entire bag into the water. I still wonder to this day if I am an asshole for asking him if he made 27 or 28 on the hole?? Anyways I dont think the kid played golf again for awhile but hopefully he found something a little less stressful. Its just Golf seems to bring out meltdowns like a bad marriage. So many more to talk about but if your still reading at this point I congratulate you.