The shoes in my golf bag were so old that they had deteriorated. The plastic around the cleats had crumbled into pieces and the leather tops were rotten. I’ll have to rely on tennis shoes when I play this weekend. A few aging balls found in the bottom of the bag will certainly be lost on the course, and I’ll be forced to buy more. I still have plenty of wooden tees thanks to the Beat The Pro promotion. The clubs are at least 30-years old, bought new back in Indianapolis at Dick’s Sporting Goods. They honestly haven’t got that much use through the years, but the head of the driver is miniscule compared to the oversized modern choices. 

At one of the LIN-TV golf outings, I was given a travel bag for my clubs, after my boss won it for the longest drive. He apparently did not need another accessory that would do nothing but sit in the garage. Now, it sits in my garage, unzipped like an ancient mummy just a few days ago in anticipation of weekend. I found two crumpled up golf towels, one with the I.U. logo and the other Purdue. They will be appropriate for Saturday’s rivalry game that we will watch in a bar. I have ties to both schools, but the Hoosiers are my Alma-mater and have the stronger championship history. The Boilermakers have been dominant in recent years, but I stubbornly remain loyal. Chances are good that #1 Purdue will prevail at what my Boiler buddies call “Ass Hall,” where I.U. typically holds court. I’m prepared for the worst. 

At least I won’t have to get up early to play either day. Our tee times are around noon, so any hangover symptoms will have somewhat subsided by then. There will be a lot of reminiscing about our LIN Television days and its illustrious leader Gary Chapman. He wasn’t really much of a cheerleader, but liked to use the words, “Go Get ‘Em.” In fact, that’s the extent of the conversation exchange that most of us ever had with him. 

Over beers and golf, we’ll talk about our annual gatherings at Cape Cod and late-night excursions into P-Town for karaoke at Colonel Bradford’s. I’ll certainly share some of these stories when I do my recap of our gathering. Other meetings, as I recall, were held at TV station sites like Dayton, Providence, and Indianapolis where we also typically did a community service project. The guys I’m with this weekend ran the LIN properties in Fort Wayne and Terre Haute. We then met twice a year with our rep firm in New York City for “Entitlement,” that was often an ugly session evaluating performance. It took all the fun out visits to Yankee Stadium for UTZ Potato Chips, the New York Athletic Club, and the lighting of Rockefeller Center’s Christmas Tree. UTZ will undoubtedly make an appearance on the golf course.