Day 4 - Jay Comes Out of the Closet


Day 4
Jay Comes out of the Closet

It was an early morning (meet in the lobby at 6:45) to get off to the European Club for a 9:30 tee-time. The morning drive was quiet and uneventful although Brittas Bay seems to be a bit in the middle of nowhere south of Dublin.

The European Club is noted for its deep bunkers that are lined with steep, vertical railroad ties. It is also a highly ranked course in the world rankings, but you would never know it from the “practice field” which was more like a west Texas cattle ranch … or maybe even a remote, aboriginal sheep farm in central Australia. You get the idea. The course was nice … nice and brutally difficult. Fairways were narrow in many places and it didn’t help that they funneled balls into the deep bunkers. Putting wasn’t much easier on poa-annua greens, which were intermittently fast and slow and always a little bit bumpy. [This is no excuse for Steve getting a bad case of the yips (or the ‘yaps’ as they say here) wherein he missed 5 of 7 four-foot putts.] There were some beautiful holes along the coast, looking down from elevated tees and other stunning vistas of the Irish countryside.

        






The vital statistics for the day are as follows:
Medalist: Jay (86) (next best scores were a 91, 92, two 93’s, 94, two 97’s).
Winning Team: Blasewitz, Emhardt, The Greater, Fisher, Love (-9 versus -7).
Skins: Everyone but Ruberg ☹

Jay came out long and strong, and if you are following this blog, you realize that Jay is making all the money. But that was not the real “coming out” for Jay, since of course we all know he is stellar golfer. Read on.

Next was a long ride (4 hour) to Kinsale, the culinary capital of Ireland. The only way to pass all that time was to play euchre and jab each other the whole way. Jay was in celebration mode with his monetary success for the day, and he started drinking Guinness like it was water. He put down his book and decided to jump in on a euchre game with Cheatin’ Chan playing Jack and Emhardt, The Greater. Of course, you can measure how much Jack has been drinking based on his decibel levels and the amount of winning he is doing at cards. Based on his volume at this point, I am estimating 4 beers and 1 convincing win at euchre. It is worth noting that Jack is a terrible loser, but he is an even worse winner.

Then along came Jay and Cheatin’ who took on Jack and The Greater. From the start, there was no love lost between these teams. On one hand that Jack and The Greater won easily, taking all five tricks, Jay calmly said, “Any two idiots could have won that hand.” To which Jack, replied, “Obviously, but you didn’t win it!” Well, that was Jay leading with his chin, and Jack taking a full swing. The grudge match was full on! It was 9-6 favoring Jack and The Greater  when Jay dealt himself a loner, got 4 points and won 10-9. Jay jumped on Jack like a lion on a three-legged zebra. The explosive, victorious vitriol came flying fast and furious. Jay exclaimed, “Put my book back in my suitcase, and I’m on the euchre table ‘til somebody beats me!!!” Jack fought back to no avail – he had lost in a stunning comeback.

From that moment forward Jay became “Jay Fisher” and his burgeoning confidence grew with each beer and each winning trick. “Boom, baby!!!” was the most common phrase uttered for the next hour. After beating Bill and Steve – again with Jay’s boisterousness making Jack look like a timid girl scout – we stopped at a rest stop. It was then that Paul noted to our driver, Adrian, “Hey, we got a drinking problem here,” meaning we were critically low on beer. Jay joked, “I think Chan can do acupuncture to help you,” and Paul replied, “I was thinking of a liquor store.”

Jay and Cheatin’ next took on Jack and The Greatest. The game proceeded with myriad yells and screams and it was hard to distinguish Jack and Jay if you were not watching. Then, it all exploded with a scoring controversy, which necessitated an instant replay review, resulting in a controversial win by Jack and The Greatest. It will rank right up there with the Stanford win over USC when the tuba player failed to make a tackle at the goal line.

More cards and more drinks continued with the Theory of Power Euchre weaving its way into the games at strategic points in time. Jay and Chan won the World Championship match, but Jack and The Greatest continued to play, taking on all comers, with Jack alternating with shouts of jubilation and animated complaints about his opponents. Paul asked Jack if he stilled complained about his opponents when he played solitaire. At one point, Bill distributed extra sets of noise-cancelling ear plugs that he had so we could all endure the last 30 minutes of the drive.

We arrived at Blind Gate House and then went to dinner at one of the finest restaurants (if not the finest) in all of Ireland – Man Friday’s. Dinner was spectacular and we had a ton of fun continuing with stories and lies about every manner of things imaginable.

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