An Explosive Round of Golf

AN EXPLOSIVE ROUND OF GOLF, how to play golf with diarrhea

By Thomas Pranio

It was 1999, and I was playing in what would be my last amateur tournament before I turned pro. It was in the springtime. The Masters had just commenced; the fairways were green, the white and pink dogwoods and the pink, purple, and lavender azaleas were in bloom.

The course I was playing that day was an hour away in North Jersey. I had an early teatime and due to some unexpected company had stayed up a little later than expected, which in the morning put me off my routine. I would not have time for my usual potato and eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee; rather, decided on a quick bowl of raisin brand. I couldn't seem to get enough of the gravely stuff that morning. I gobbled it as if it were my last meal.

My buddy Harry was due to arrive any second to chauffeur us (he was playing, too). As usual, I spent most of the drive half asleep, with one eye opened, Though, on the way, I felt the slightest twinge of rumbling in my stomach, a kind of complaint by my gut for what I had ingested. No worries; been here before. I'd have more than enough time to find the loo before I'd teed off; otherwise, if I was late, I'd be assessed a two-shot penalty for everyone my shot playing competitors took. The problem was, despite my previous optimism, upon arrival, my name was announced as we drove in. I was to present my body on the first tee, immediately, or else. I barely had enough time to put on my golf shoes. I would not, after all, have time to make it to the loo.

No matter, I would just have to find a porta-potty on the front nine. Anyway, I manned up and ripped a drive straight down the middle of the fairway. That helped my confidence. I grabbed my bag and started toward my ball. I couldn't help but let out a little gas. I smiled. There were no two ways about it. I was flatulent. Mine you, I’m no boy scout but I’ve always considered myself competent under pressure. Not necessarily a man’s man, I always thought of myself as the kind of guy you would want next to you in a foxhole, or perhaps, have your back in a zombie apocalypse. As John Peterson might put it, capable. I searched the horizon for a Johny On The Spot, nothing.

My concentration waned. A memory bubble popped. It was the last time I had changed a diaper. Unbeknownst to me, my three-year-old nephew had been fed creamed spinach just minutes before my arrival and brother's departure for date night with his wife. Twenty years after, I'm still trying to fathom how the stuff had gotten on the ceiling fan.

The sweaty palms and forehead didn't hit me until the second hole. The intestinal pain, not until around the fourth tee. I squeezed my cheeks. The pain was excruciating. Tyson was attempting to, mind you, from the inside out, punch his way out of the paper bag that was my stomach; and he was winning. The trumpets sounded. My fellow competitors had given a wide berth. Thank God the hole was downhill; downhill the natural enemy of explosive diarrhea; otherwise, I would have been finished.

Cautiously, I was able to let out just enough steam to steady the ship. "Ahhhhh," relief. I would be fine, after all. I wiped my eyes. Up until that moment, I had no idea that eyes could sweat. I was diligent, or was that desperate; anyway, who quibbles about such thing in such situations? Portable bathrooms were usually always sometimes, somewhere stationed in the middle of the nine.

And yes! Praise the Lord! A miracle had materialized before me; out of nowhere, though it not a porta-potty stood an old farmhouse smack dab in the middle of the property—no doubt the greenskeepers. I yelled to my fellow competitors to keep playing, “I’ll catch up,” while I walked over and knocked on the backdoor in hopes someone might be there and give me pity.

Much to my regret, no one answered. And whatever I was going through or through me seemed to have a will of its own. I had eaten a Gargoyle, and it wanted out. A colostomy bag had filled and was waiting. I was no longer the master of my domain. A warning shot was fired. I was surprised in the same way a person who was just about to get hit by a bus reacts to the moment in a two-syllable utterance, "Ut oh?" The only coverage on the grounds was a cluster of shrubs and bushes surrounding the back of the house. I felt something drop—the first indications of soft serve. I ran as fast as I could, dropped my pants, squatted, and produced a tsunami that lay waste to whatever may have happened to be beneath me. Microscopic villages destroyed. Lilliputians drowned.

I looked down and behind me to see what kind of damage I had done; an experiment gone wrong: A tiny "pinch" of stay up to late, a "kick" of drag ass in the morning, three bowls of raisin brand, and a whole lot of whole milk the rumbling in my stomach now had me theorize may have been out of date — expiré. It was less Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde and more Charles and the Chocolate Factory.

Fortunately, there was a golf towel hanging from my bag. A souvenir. A present from a friend. A brand new, large, white little number with my all time favorite golf course name embroidered on it that in seconds would be martyred to the alter of my body -- sacrificed to the God of lactose intolerance. I cleaned myself off as quickly and as well as possible, soaking up and wiping off whatever bits and pieces remain on my legs, crotch, and well, bits and pieces. I took a quick look down the fairway. My playing partners were way ahead on the hole. I would never catch up.

Lack of cover kept me from discarding my once blue, now brown tie-dyed large Haines, size 36s. And though I was, what the British call, "knackered," I felt better now. Like a forensic pathologist covering the eyes of the murder victim, I spread the towel over the wreckage, requiescat in pace.

Then, after pulling myself together. Making sure I had not forgotten anything, with my tail between my legs, began the long uphill journey back to the clubhouse. Though, regardless my efforts, enough moisture remained to produce a kind of hermetic seal between my underpants to my undercarriage, which made for less than a comfortable walk. My gate like something out of Monty Pythons sketch, The Ministry of Silly Walks, as I stepped one, pinched two, pulled three — all the way back.

I walked to the ball in the fairway. I looked around. There was no one behind me. The course seemed deserted as if a bomb had gone off. When I reached it, I was only a hundred and fifty yards from the hole, and for some reason, because there was no one around, I hit it. I mean what the heck, I'll play out. Besides, from what I had just been through, I needed some data to ground me into unknowing. If I had alcohol l I would have drank it. I took out an eight iron and, without as much as a practice swing or a thought in my head, hit a laser right at the pin. It was the best shot I'd hit all day. Amazing what you can accomplish without a load in your pants. When I'd gotten to the green had seen the ball at tap in distance. As casually as I could grabbed my putter, knocked it in. I made a birdie. I looked at the next hole. There was no sign of my group.

I couldn't tell you why I kept on playing. The next hole was a scenic uphill 185-yard par three, a hole surrounded by bunkers, the wind coming from the left, pines to the right. In normal conditions, it would have been a stock six-iron, though having assessed the conditions, the wind, coolness of the air, and morning dew, my cold moistened undercarriage. I felt it would have to be more of a finesse shot, a choked-down three-quarter-four wood to do the trick. I'd start the ball out to the left edge of the green and gently faded it back to the middle. Regardless of my beliefs that most of the damage was done, I thought, best to keep the efforts to the minimum.

At varying points in my journey, I was clenching my cheeks so tightly; The Army of Engineers would have had difficulty figuring a way to chisel a penny from between them without giving Lincoln a black eye. If, in fact, it were able to place a penny there.

Having arrived at the ninth, and yes.., I played in. That oh-so-familiar feeling caught up with me, again. I forgot about finishing the hole. I forgot about the ball on the green. I forgot all semblance of course etiquette, but I did not forget the route to the men's locker room. I left my clubs on the club rack and ran as fast as I could run my "arse" off, sputtering, squeaking, and backfiring, and dropping whatever payload may have remained... all the livelong way.

A couple of hours later, when Harry came in from playing, he'd noticed the big WD (withdraw) next to my name in the scorers' tent—having "traded" a towel I had found in the locker room for a pair of my skivvies I had dumped in the garbage; I placed it on his front seat and told him what happened. And of course, he did what anyone would do in that situation, laugh his ass off and opened the car windows. We laughed mostly all the way home. Next time he said, "Bring an extra towel and some wet wipes, will you." I asked, “Do you?”

He said, “Yeah, what do you think you are the first person that happened too?”

The next day, I turned pro, and I’ve been teaching golf ever since. And every once in a while, when one of my students asks for advice on how to prepare for a big tournament I do my best to take a contemplative pose by looking to the horizon wherever I am, remember that time I ate too much raisin brand and suggest, without much explaining, “Make sure to bring an extra towel and a box of wet wipes.”