CHESTER, NJ

These are jagged times for those in the golfing industry, especially in the Northeast, with two factors working in unison to essentially whack country clubs and their employees in the forehead with a powerful Taylor Made 510 Driver: the dismal weather this spring has brought to us and the downright pathetic performance of the economy.

Continuous, uncooperative weather is the most frustrating disturbance for most country club members. While vast sums of savings and investments allow them to weather the storm of economic decline, surviving a temperamental and downright vindictive Mother Nature is another feat altogether. Since many country club golfers have more money than God (or at the very least, comparable portfolios and powers), they seem to be summarily outraged that this guy God has so much power over their golfing lives. Not only does he restrict the level of talent they can conjure out of - not to mention control they have over - their swings, he has the gall to swamp golf courses with unremitting, heavy rain. The courses are unplayable on many days, and when they are playable, there are nefarious restrictions such as “cart-path only” or, even more ominous to the lazy and the semi-handicapped, (the dreaded) NO CARTS. God, for whatever reason, has been tirelessly raining the early prime of the golf season down the drain.

The scenes in clubhouses are conspiratorial. No longer concerned with mergers with Fleet or Qualcom, the latest dotcom bust, or the unnervingly mellow performances of Alan Greenspan before the Senate Finance Committee, golfers sip beer and gin and throw dice in the grill room, watch the relentlessly deteriorating weather, and concoct plans of delirium.
The plan for these multi-millionaires and semi-billionaires is fairly simple: a hostile takeover of God, Inc. Not only can they afford it (how much can God be worth – sixty, seventy million? They could raise that in a heartbeat without touching anyone’s personal fortunes!), but they figure God owes them, given all they do for religion. After all, what party not only accepts religious fanatics (or is it lunatics) like Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson, but treats them like well-respected brothers? The Republican Party, thank you very much. Yes the GOP does quite a lot for their Christian God – more than you might recognize. School prayer, faith-based initiatives, and threatening to bomb any Muslim nation who looks at the U.S. sideways or with a smirk back to the Stone Age only begin to cover the unlimited contributions the GOP offers generously to God, Inc.

So with God owing these Republican golfers, and with a hostile takeover of God, Inc. looming, it shouldn’t be long before the skies clear up, and it couldn’t come sooner for the golfing industry and its elite.

But with God bought out and bribed like a White House Republican, and with country clubs’ and golf professionals’ economic forecasts brightening due to improving weather conditions, there still remains the economic chaos at the bottom of the golfing feeding chain. The peon of the golfing industry, the lowly country club caddie, will still be feeling the burn of near economic recession.

The caddie boom of the late nineties has been well-documented. Caddie rates skyrocketed, paralleling, and in some cases bettering, the growth rate of the stock market. But no longer, as things are looking bleak. Although golfers can still afford high dues at their overpriced country club of choice, it remains necessary, in these difficult times, to trim the budget. That trim directly affects the sobriety level of caddies (read: the amount of beer or blackberry brandy they can afford), as caddies are the first casualties of financial downturns. Recently, a golfer was quoted as telling his caddie – “either the stock market goes up or your caddie rate goes down.” There are only so many Budweiser’s or packs of Kool’s a caddie can trim from his budget. Imagine a caddie having to cancel a trip to Atlantic City due to Wall Street woes?

The caddie boom, it appears lamentably, is over. At the beginning of this golfing season, it was the weather that kept caddies from maintaining a healthy schedule of independent contracting and intakes of massive quantities of alcohol. Now that the weather seems to be improving, it will most likely be the economy that throws into flux the delicate and intricate balance of a hard-working caddie’s life.

To make matters worse, as the Dow Jones falters, so does the caddie stock market. In the caddie yard there are no stock tickers, there are lottery tickers – no discarded sell, buy or cancel tickets, instead discarded pick 3’s, pick 4’s and Big Game tickets. There seems to be no luck involved in the caddie stock market, for almost no one ever seems to come out ahead. Investing, the caddie deduces steadily, offers hardly any dividends.

In the Northeast the golfing industry is split into thirds: spring, summer and fall. The first trimester was dismal. The second trimester has taken an early hit, but the weather might turn. And who knows what will happen come autumn. But one thing is for sure, the golfing gods will continue to be crazy, and, both in the caddie yard and the men’s grill, the general consensus will remain that the difference between the caddie stock market and Wall Street is luck, and the lucky will continue to pay for their drinks on member accounts, the unlucky with wadded caddie earnings out of their socks.

If God can be bought, he will be, allowing for clear blue skies and beautiful conditions - while luck will continue to benefit those who can pay for it.