Ann Lange
Golf gagster gurus Sam and Nona Leeper, and Activities Chair Bonnie Barazani organized The Preserve’s First Marshmallow Masters Putting Tournament held on March 31. Seventy-one co-ed putters, most named either Alice or Alliss, gathered at MountainView Golf Club for a round of puttermania, followed by a grubbilicious BBQ at the Mesquite Grill featuring grilled chicken, hamburgers, fresh fruit, coleslaw, potato salad, and cookies. Lured in with promises of big money prizes, the contestants showed up ready to putt for dough with their regulation sticks, spikes and sphere-shaped objects in various colors, each with 336 dimples, weighing no more than 1.62 ounces, and at least 1.68 inches in diameter, which they aimed to put or putt into a four-and-a-half-inch hole. Sixteen teams futzed and puttzed their way around the 18-hole course, with putt tricks from Pandora’s Putting Box such as first stroke blindfolded, first stroke using the back of the putter and putting a tennis ball or marshmallow.
The results of the putting pandemonium, as carefully calculated by Banker Sam, were 1st place tie for the Bogies and Slicers with a score of 49 and a payout of $10 to each team member; a 2-way tie for the Spoons and Eagles with a score of 51 and a payout of $8 each. Individual awards were given for Best, Luckiest and Longest Single Putts, rewarding these proud players with 100 Grand bars, cookie dough, Hershey gold bars, and chocolate gold coins. An unplanned award was given to Maria “Markswoman” Mar, for sinking two holes-in-one, which put a PayDay bar in her pocket, thousands of endorsement opportunities, and an advance on her book, Easy-Peasy Putting. There was talk that a second unplanned award should have gone to Bonnie, stylin’ a cool coif, for the best Marshmallow Fluff Do. Painfully now, we must mention the Dud Award given to a member of the Long Knockers team. Fred “Pistol Putt” Barazani, as usual, found himself on a slippery slope, and made the longest, most atrociously missed putt. His team told him to curb his enthusiasm, cool it on the Geritol, keep his putts on the green, or at least in the same fairway, and sent him to the corner on putter probation with his prize, where he learned the hard way, that Milk Duds melt in your hands, not in your mouth.
The Rules Committee, unable to find any similarity whatsoever between golf balls and marshmallows, met in a closed door session to determine whether a marshmallow qualified as a regulation ball. First, they consulted GolfSnoopes.com. The mainframe went into overdrive as the database wheels spun and sputtered trying to process such a ridiculous query, and finally coughed up the response that only a nincompoop would putt with a marshmallow. LeeperLeaks, catching wind of this story, chimed in that these pudgy puffballs did indeed meet the requirements of a regulation ball, as long as they were used in senior communities where the Old Relics were getting a little soft around the middle, especially if they still putted with featheries and gutta-percha gutties, or dressed in cardigans, corduroy knickers, and knee highs, in unattractive argyle or plaid. When the founder of LeeperLeaks was contacted for further comment regarding this potentially fake news, he added, “I am Sam. Sam-I-am. I like green eggs and spam.” The committee concluded that rules are overrated, the marshmallow that took eight putts to finely wobble-de-bobble into the cup should be roasted, and that marshmallows taste like Heaven but putt like Hell.
Oh, how sweet it would be if those golf gimmickry galoots Sam and Nona Leeper would organize The Second Marshmallow Masters Putting Tournament next year. We hope you play it again, Sam!