The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport by Carl Hiaasen

Author:Carl Hiaasen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Golf, Non Fiction
Published: 2009-05-04T14:00:00+00:00

Rodent Golf

I have a history with vermin. For years I kept red rat snakes, so named because of a specific culinary preference. The hundreds of rats that I fed to my pets were domestically bred, but they were rats nonetheless; basically the same tenacious flea-friendly critter that in the Middle Ages decimated Europe with the bubonic plague.

Several months into my golfing comeback, a rat chewed to shreds the auxiliary wiring harness in the underchassis of my Chevy Suburban, causing the air conditioner to more or less flame out. The gluttonous destruction was achieved on nighttime forays during the summer, while the vehicle was parked in the driveway of a house that my family and I were renting.

The cost of the rat noshing: $2,196.92.

Astonishingly, my insurance company agreed to pay for most of the damages. I was informed that rodents in Florida regard automotive wiring as a delicacy, and claims such as mine were not rare.

Nonetheless, the inconvenience was aggravating. I'd been driving my SUV back and forth to the golf course several times a week, clueless to the nocturnal sabotage. Never once had I spied a rat lurking near the Suburban, or anywhere in the yard.

Anticipating a repeat attack—and diminished sympathy from the insurance company—I was eager to locate the culprit before he commenced snacking on my replacement wiring.

The summer vacation ended without further incident. Then, on the day the kids went back to school, I finished breakfast and went outside to a shed where our appliance boxes were stored. I found the box I needed, opened it—and immediately spotted a funky-looking nest made of shredded packing material, from which protruded a long, twitchy black tail.

Hastily I shut the box and dashed into the house in search of a weapon. There were two choices, both of which I'd purchased because of commercials on the Golf Channel. The first was the Medicus dual-hinge driver, endorsed by Mark O'Meara; the second was the Momentus Swing Trainer, endorsed by Fred Funk.

I'd been practicing sporadically with both devices, though my golf had not improved perceptibly. The Medicus is about the same length as a regulation driver, but the clubhead is rigged to waggle on a hinge if you make a mistake at any one of six compass points in your swing. It's an effective training aid, but to do battle with a wild rat I needed a bludgeon that wasn't going to flop impotently at the critical moment of impact.

So I grabbed the Momentus, basically a foreshortened 6-iron that's weighted heavily to build muscle strength. It has a molded grip for the hands, a sturdy steel shaft, and it tips the scale at a formidable 40 ounces—a full half-pound heavier than Barry Bonds's baseball bat.

What happened next wasn't pretty, but save your postage stamps. A rat is nothing but a rat, okay? They're dirty, destructive, disease-carrying pests; as a species, the opposite of endangered. When the icecaps melt and the oceans rise, I promise you that billions of rats will be nesting safely in the treetops, warm and dry, making more rats.

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