AN UNUSUAL ROUND

 It was one of those rare days in southern California that can be described as rainy. I had arranged to meet with an old shipmate at Camp Pendleton that day to play a round of golf. I drove up from San Diego and he drove down from Long Beach and we met somewhere near the middle in Camp Pendleton. It took a little while for me to find the golf course since I hadn't been there before and, now that I think about it, never went again. It was fairly easy to locate despite being mostly hidden in some of the many folds of the earth that make up Pendleton.

When I got to the clubhouse I couldn't help but notice that there were a dozen high end cars and limousines sporting 4 star placards and stickers in their windshilds and a number of young men standing around in the shade. Those were about the only vehicles in the lot. Salty veterans like myself and my friend, another young LT, had no worries about running into Commandants, Assistant Commandants and other 4 star Marines on their golf course. We'd seen worse.

The course was interesting because I think it was laid out in the dry season when the entire length of it resembled one of the most common things you'll ever find in San Diego County, a wadi of infinite length and depth. The wadi ran through a deep cleft in the land such that at the bottom you were standing perhaps 50 or 60 feet below the level of the club and parking lot and you played off tees located at the tops of either side to greens located on the other side or down in the depths.

Did I mention that it had rained and rained periodically on us? Have you ever tried to climb really steep grass covered slopes in the rain in a place like SOCAL where, while the land lies parched and thirsts for the rain, it only reluctantly absorbs it and is better suited to having it run off somewhere, anywhere, else?

Yeah we slipped, slithered, fell and waded for all we were worth and for the first and only time the 6 packs we carried with us for aqua safety were not the cause. As I recall we both got around in something like 120. We were never good golfers but this was ridiculous.

What I remember best though was that we essentially had the course to ourselves. The junior Marines were probably warned off or scared off by the herd of 4 star generals who were having themselves a private conference of some sort at the club house after ODS and so we managed the most undignified scramble of our lives without anybody we could hear or see making rude comments. I'm sure the generals up on the patio of the club found us deeply amusing. 

It was not quite as good as the time we played the Presidio in San Francisco when our ship pulled in for fuel and lube oil and we bounced a drive off the golf cart of the twit arrogantly crossing the fairway in front of us. Turned out that guy was a general. They're everywhere.