Logos & Such

I’m supposed to be at Peachtree Golf Club this afternoon for the screening of a golf flick that a buddy helped produce. It’s actually a big deal – not too many screenings happen in Atlanta, let alone at Peachtree, but we’ll see. I don’t have a car. I popped a tire, and I’m waiting for a set of new ones to arrive. My wife has the kids at the doctor, so her car isn’t an option. My only hope is my mother, who’s out running errands. If she gets back in time, I’ll put on a jacket and tie and go, and if not, I won’t. It’s out of my control. The truth is, I don’t want to drive to Atlanta, and I realize I may sound spoiled, but I’ve been to Peachtree many times. Don’t get me wrong – I love the club, but you only get the first dance once in life.

I’ve been traveling a lot lately and have been fortunate to visit several great clubs, including Los Angeles Country Club and the Racquet & Tennis Club in New York. But, someday, LACC, R&T, and, dare I say, the hallowed grounds of Merion will inevitably be the same in that the law of diminishing returns is an unavoidable tragedy in life. The exceptions may be Augusta and Cypress, but I’ll bet there’s a green jacket with an owner who’s tired of putting a tie on when he’s done with his round.

Thousands of men - hell, maybe tens of thousands - would drop what they’re doing to visit Peachtree, let alone to see a golf movie in the historic clubhouse. But I’ve been there, done that, got the quarter-zip. Life is odd at times. You work so hard for what you want, and when you get it, you don’t know that at that very moment, that’s as high as you’ll ever feel, and with each subsequent experience, it loses its excitement and newness, until you become indifferent about seeing a movie screening at Peachtree Golf Club. What the hell is wrong with me?

So, I move on to obsessing over LACC, chasing that elusive dragon, which at some point will become Peachtree-ish, and before I know it, I’ll have all the quarter-zips a closet can handle, and they’ll all be the same. I’ll be “that guy” – you know who I’m talking about. The guy who appears to have it all (in this tiny and insignificant part of life) and comes across as borderline arrogant in his aloofness, but it’s not intentional; he’s actually a great guy; it’s just life, a privileged life, of course.

Let’s be honest: how many people know about Peachtree Golf Club, the R&T, or even Cypress? Very, very few, and even less care. You spend your whole life climbing into the clouds, only to get further away from reality in a futile effort to acquire things that will be sold for pennies on the dollar at your estate sale. But in the throes of enterprise, when a man is drunk on desire, none of that matters because he’s myopically driven. The more exclusive and unknown, the better. In this small and terribly bizarre game, it’s just you and a few other guys, all of whom are incapable of governing their ambitions, who live to compete with one another, whether anyone admits it or not.

I see it every time I’m in a private club. It’s not enough to wear the logo of the club you belong to, but the logo of a club you don’t belong to! The one you visited as a guest of another man, who, no doubt, is wealthier, tanner, and more powerful than you, and for reasons unbeknownst to anyone with common sense, you parade around showing people you played golf at his course, at the richer man’s course. You essentially become a billboard, a walking advertisement exhibiting the success of another man, which is subjective because no one knows what was sacrificed, lost, or inherited to get it, and all of this conspicuous showboating amounts to little more than a deep-seeded desire to steer clear of wearing a “lesser” logo, which, in an ironic twist of fate, may be your club, the club giving you diminishing returns.

Sometimes I wonder how things worked when pro shops weren’t inundated with Peter Millar reps, needlepoint belts, and quarter-zips in every shade of the rainbow. When a man was invited to play a big boy course, say Cypress, and when the round was over, he had a few glasses of Budweiser and a ham sandwich. He wasn’t obsessing for days on end about how much he’d spend in the pro shop. The pro shop was just a pro shop. It sold polos to members who needed one to golf. It didn’t sell etched stemware or sixty versions of the same hat. As impossible as it is to imagine, that poor bastard went back to his life without any evidence of playing Cypress.

Cypress Point Club, Pebble Beach, California

A friend of mine recently played Cypress. The story of how he got on is one for the ages – totally improbable, one in a million, must have made a deal with the devil. But he played it. He stuck 16, had lunch in the clubhouse, and left with NO merchandise. H – O – L – Y     S – H – I – T! Can you even imagine!? He’ll have to atone for this sin in front of God Almighty himself. When he told me, I was admittedly shocked. I may talk a big game, but I’m a sucker for an elusive logo. Hell, if you’ve seen a photo of me, there’s a 90% chance I’m wearing a Peachtree Golf Club hat if I’m not in a suit. As spoiled as it sounds, the pro shop at Peachtree was my main source of clothing for a while. But what the shit…not getting anything at Cypress?

When asked why, he simply said, “I didn’t see anything I needed.” What the hell kind of answer is that! No one needs anything in a pro shop. But not a single hat? Not even one of those $70 t-shirts for middle-aged men who are too lazy to wear a polo. I don’t get it – I still don’t. There is no way I’d walk out empty-handed. But he didn’t walk out empty-handed. Not by a long shot. He played one of the best golf courses on the planet with good men on a sunny day. He also shot in the low 80s. How old-school of him.

Will I end up at Peachtree today? I really don’t know; it’s out of my hands, but if I do, it’ll be because I want to see my friends, both employees and members. Make no mistake: Peachtree Golf Club is an INCREDIBLY special place. And it’s not just the course. On top of the great men who work there and the friendliness of the members, it’s a club that has helped my family. I’ll forever be grateful for the golf outings they’ve let us host over the years for our foundation.

Maybe the trick in life is to treat special things sporadically. If you’re lucky enough to receive invitations to a place like Peachtree, be grateful in some crazy way that it’s not every week. That said, I’d sleep on a cot in the caddyshack for the rest of my life if they’d let me.