Random Pairing Story Contest: Stuck in the Desert

(Coming in fifth place in the Random Pairing Story Contest is Gary Albrecht and his story “Stuck in the Desert.” Gary takes us to Arizona where he was randomly Paired Up with “Tom,” who had a tough time with the desert landscape. Thanks, Gary!)

It was probably early 1997, while I was still a member at Desert Mountain Golf Club in Scottsdale, AZ. I was visiting from my home in Colorado with my wife-at-the-time-whose-name-I-don’t-recall—let’s just call her 2X.

2X and I were playing the Geronimo course that day, a ruggedly beautiful monster of a course. For those who have played in the Arizona desert, you know how different and beautiful it can be—and so different from the golf in Minnesota (where I grew up) and Colorado. However, aside from the rare sighting of a rattlesnake, desert golf has some subtle dangers, including cholla and cat’s paw.

Cholla is also known as the jumping cactus. They look a bit like large, dried out dill pickles, but with armor in the form of sharp spines that encircle each segmented joint or lobe. They’re called “jumping cactus” because of how easily the spines on the lobes attach to things like skin if one gets too close. Once you’re stuck by one of these spines it can be very difficult to remove them.

Cat’s paw (or cat’s claw) is even more subtle. It’s a shrubby tree with small but very nasty thorns that will strafe your finest golf shirt.

2X and I were paired with “Tom,” a new member from the Midwest. It became apparent that Tom was not familiar with the desert and its hidden dangers, so I decided to forewarn him, explaining that he needed to beware of the two I’ve described, and why.

Well, Tom’s not-so-good game was rusty, making it even worse. He struggled mightily, hitting tee shot after tee shot into the desert. 2X and I dutifully helped him search. Somewhere toward the end of our round on the back nine, after yet another errant tee shot, we were looking for Tom’s ball. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tom bend down to pick it up, an instant before he let out a bloody shriek. He stood up with a cholla lobe stuck to the top of his left index finger. As he started to reach for the lobe with his right hand, I yelled to him to stop because we needed to remove the lobe with a tool like a comb or he would surely have cholla spines in both hands.

We were able to free Tom from the lobe, but the spines—probably at least five of them—remained stuck to the top of his left index finger, now drawing blood. We could not remove them by pulling on them, and we didn’t have anything that would work. Here I have to point out that Midwesterners are a pretty hardy breed, especially after a long winter without golf, and Tom was no exception. He decided that he would try to finish out the round with the spines stuck in his finger. A lefty, he addressed the ball on the next tee with his bloody left finger off the grip, pointing toward the ground. He quickly realized that was a very bad idea and took off in his golf cart in search of a pair of pliers, never to be seen again.