A Saturday of Golf & Footie

Happy Easter! Missions accomplished! I've once again just walked off the small, serene Bather's Beach which I've had ALL TO MYSELF since about 1030 this morning. I had started at Geno's, a fixture on Cappuccino Row, for a flat white, partially because it is delicious and partially because it is the only coffee I know how to order in Oz :-p Ordering coffee here is like ordering coffee at Starbucks in Pig Latin. Either Sarah or Amy was schooling me on ordering coffee here, I'll have to review my notes because I have no idea.

So, yesterday was incredibly full.

I was up at 6, exercised on the monkey bars at the Esplanade and took this picture of Henry St.

Off to the course I went. I met up with Ben, Andy, and Nola from the previous day. The teams are set up on the spot and I play with an expatriate Scottsman named Deano, an Aussie named Verne (my Stableford partner), and Nola's 14yo son Joey.

The course is very nice - it has some interesting bends in it around the green. Andy loaned me his clubs saving me the $15 rental fee (which would have gone in his pocket, I mean a truly generous gesture!). It's a great set, Titleist woods (all the way from New Bedford like me!) and Scotty Cameron putter (retail $350, I gotta get one, I putt great with them, Ben has one too) and Taylor Made irons. Well, I duffed my tee shot in front of the entire league but luckily, I came up with these excuses the night before and was ready:

1. I've never played on this side of the equator. You know the ball goes the other way just like the toilets?

2. My front foot is still asleep from my 29 hours of flying - it's not that I don't shift my weight, it's that I can't.

3. What day is it? Oh, that's right, Tuesday never happened.

4. Ohhh, that's 100 METERS. What is that, metric? You see, in the States, we use yards.

5. Ben's clubs are 2.5 centemeters long and these are 2.5 centemeters short.

6. No no, this must be a 58 meteric degree wedge.

Even more lucky that anticipating the need for excuses (really, I haven't played in 2 years) was the company I found myself in. Joey is a fine young man - he has enormous respect for the game and it's etiquette, he's got a quick wit (whilst butchering a hole I asked if it was the hardest on the course and he very quickly, and quite correctly, noted that it was the second easiest) and he adeptly identified every crazy looking bird for me and schooled me on the habits of each. He and Deano won the Stableford tournament with 76 points, just barely holding off Ben and his partner by 1 point.

The league put on free beers and sausages after the round leaving me to wonder how they make money at all. They take fines very seriously, maybe because they have A$1 and A$2 coins which are easy to throw at the treasurer while your infractions are outed.

For instance, I had a A$3 fine for taking three stokes to get passed the ladies tee box on the longest drive hole. As usual on a longest drive hole, or any other hole for that matter, I swung out of my shoes and drove the ball straight into the ground. Deano was insensed. I told him it was a trick shot and I bet he couldn't do the same. Well, he proved me wrong, and somehow put so much backspin on the ball that it went a meter BEHIND the tee! This picture is Deano lining up his second shot - Joey suggested I mark mine. Needless to say, I was a little hesitant to pay the fine because it stood as the longest drive for at least three groups. But I threw the coins just the same.

My first real experience tip for future Australia visitors: wear a belt, you'll have so much change in your pocket at the end of the day you need it to keep from losing your britches. This is about A$20 in change and I can remove just 7 coins to make it A$5. One could stand to make a lot of money panhandling in this country.

So after golf, I went off to see a game of footie. The AFL games are played in the Subiaco Oval, which I think I mentioned in a previous post. They run a free bus service to the games from the depot at the end of my street. I spoke for a while with a bloke sitting next to me who took it as a direct complement to him, and with absolute surprise, when I said that everybody I had met in my 2 days in town was incredibly nice, helpful, and smart. I only mention that because Bryson made the same observation in In a Sunburned Country and I had to laugh.

This game looks like ABSOLUSTE CHAOS - it's very fast paced and changes direction constantly. Balls are being bounced, kicked, punched, I mean it's crazy. It was hard to capture the chaos on camera, the field his huge - here's the best I got.

My neighbors, Keith (originally a Kiwi, he's a racing mechanic and by the sounds of it quite a good one!) and Peta (who has lived her whole life in Perth) took me under their wing and shared their extensive knowledge and enthusiasm that the kindest, smartest gridiron fan (like Dad of course) would extend to a stranger new to the game. And what a game! The West Coast Eagles (one of my home teams though I plan on rooting for the Fremantle Dockers when the two teams play in the derby in 2 weeks) outlasted a 40 point comeback by the Brisbane Lions to win it 92 (14.8) to 76 (11.10) before a crowd of 39, 591.

Keith and Peta helped me to my bus (Keith's 25 yo son goes to the States often to race so he took me on with Fatherly intentions). I'll see them again, Keith is going to put me in touch with his son who will show me around. Again, great people.

I had intentions of meeting up with Ben at the Metro but by the time I got back from footie the line was a mile long. I wandered into Benny's Bar which had a band that basically played that music that we rollerskated to in 1990, and a little Justin Timberlake. It was a lot of fun.

All that and I read 100 pages of John Adams today. Now I'm headed out to Little Creatures for a Sunday sesh.

Good on ya,

Ev