While working on a golf course as maintenance staff, I was mowing the banks surrounding the greens with an old National Triplex mower.

As I mowed, some golfers were on their approach to the green, and one hit a wedge that landed in what would be my next mower pass. I rounded the green, and as I approached his ball, I swerved the mower deck around his ball and then cut back into my original course.

As the irate golfer ran up to me yelling, I throttled the mower down so that I could hear him.

Golfer: “You ran over my ball!”

Me: “No, sir, I did not. I went around your ball.”

Golfer: “Look at where it is. It’s right behind the mower!”

He is yelling while pointing at his intact ball.

Now, I’d been driving this thing for a couple of summers, and I was really good. His ball was lying behind the left mower deck, but only because I had expertly cut around it.

Golfer: “You ran over my ball! You owe me a new one!”

Me: “Sir, I didn’t mow over your ball. If you look, the grass is still long where your ball sits. I did not run over your ball.”

Golfer: “You did, and I want to talk to your manager!”

Me: “Very well, I’ll be happy to let you talk to him, but first, let’s demonstrate what a golf ball looks like when I actually run over it, shall we?”

I throttled up the mower again to full. I proceeded to back the Triplex up, running over his ball. The high-speed rotary mower blades diced the ball into nothing but a pile of shredded plastic and rubber bands, which ejected like a pile of spaghetti.

Me: “For the record, sir. That is what it looks like when I run over a golf ball.”

I reached into my pocket, pulled out a relatively new golf ball, and tossed it to him before continuing mowing around the green.

He didn’t talk to my boss.

Just an FYI: maybe it was the way we configured the mower decks and the height at which we set them for mowing banks, but it was actually possible to run over a golf ball and have it remain untouched. However, I never did this because I knew how bad it would look and that I’d just be asking for an irate golfer.

The other thing to know about that type and brand of mower is that if you ran over a golf ball in reverse, you’d get instant rubber band salad. It was no accident that I backed over the ball…

During my summer break, I often work part-time for a local country club/golf course. I help the groundskeepers, and I took the job with one provision: “no member interaction”. I’m what you would call a surly old b*****d.

One morning, I was finishing my shift, and I noticed an older woman stumble. She looked injured.

Me: “Do you need help? Or do you need medical attention?”

Woman: “Oh, I’m fine. My daughter will be right here soon.”

Her daughter returned, very distraught, but the woman said she had just slipped and would be fine. As the daughter helped walk her mom back into the clubhouse, I brought her clubs up and left them outside. (Heck, they were on a cart.)

Now that was how the end of my day began.

As I walked back to a maintenance shed to retrieve my water bottle, I heard someone come up behind me.

Member: “Excuse me. My friend and I would like some iced teas while we let this other group play through.”

Me: “Okay, go ahead…”

Then, she tried to push a $20 bill into my hand.

Member: “Can you hurry? We don’t want to wait all day.”

Me: “If you’re waiting on me, you will be waiting all day. That’s not what I do on the course, and I’m leaving.”

Member: “You work here, and I’m a member, so you do what I need.”

I said something to the effect of:

Me: “Lady, what you need is therapy if you think I’m bringing you tea.”

I walked off while she was still talking.

The next day, the “manager” stopped me and told me there had been a complaint.

Me: “I don’t care. Fire me if you want, and find someone else to clean the goose s*** off the patio each day.”

The waterfowl come onto a large patio area overnight and leave calling cards everywhere.

Me: “I had an agreement: No Customer Service!”

So, I walked away and went home.

My manager called me the next day asking if I would please return to work. He said later that he’d talked to the member and informed her that grounds staff do not interact with members.

That last part about not interacting with members/customers isn’t completely true. I have enjoyed many rounds of golf with members. There’s an older gentleman who asks if I have time for a round just about every other week. Let’s just say my golf prowess makes him look like a PGA champ…

We’ve upgraded all of our gas golf carts to electric ones, and as you’d expect, they are much quieter — no engine noise. A woman comes up to me.

Member: “The cart you gave me doesn’t work!”

She brings me over to the cart and pushes the accelerator. She drives forward a few feet and then stomps on the brakes. She does this about three times and then looks at me.

Member: “See?! It’s not making any noise.”

Me: “But it is moving, ma’am.”

Member: “But it’s not making any noise! It’s not working!”

Despite the fact that she drove several feet, she insisted that the cart was not working because there were no engine noises. After I explained that they were electric carts and made no noise, she drove off, very… very… cautiously.

In 2008, my son and I drove to Oklahoma to watch the PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) championship tournament on the course instead of on TV. We took as many bottles of water as we could carry (knowing the outlandish prices inside) and a three-legged folding camper stool, as we were going to move around to different fairways.

We “camped” along a fairway, and after a period of time, I stood to stretch my legs and walk a short distance from my stool. When I returned, a young man was sitting on my stool.

Me: “That’s my stool, and you need to get off of it.”

Young Man: “You weren’t using it.”

Me: “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s my stool, and I’m telling you to get off.”

He finally got up.

A few minutes later, I looked toward the tee box, and there he was, occupying someone else’s deck chair, only to be told — I could tell by body language of the owner — to get out of that one.

Before we left to move to another fairway, I saw him in another deck chair.

We saw him come in with his two young kids, carrying kids’ deck chairs for them and nothing for himself. All the while he was moving up and down the fairway sitting in other people’s chairs, his kids were sitting next to us eating snacks. While we were there, he paid very little attention to his kids.

Just watching him, we could tell he felt entitled to use whatever he wanted.

About twenty or so years ago, my sister had just finished high school. Before deciding on uni or whatever, she took a year off to do what is known as a gap year. She was traveling around the UK, doing various temping jobs, when she landed herself a gig doing security for a celebrity golf tournament in an old university city called Saint Andrews.

She was a poor backpacker, and she had discovered that many of the local supermarkets would mark down a lot of their fresh foods near closing.

After a particularly long shift, she was cutting it close to closing time at the local supermarket, so she was frantically rushing around trying to put together a decent meal from their specials. My carb-loving sister had a hankering for fresh pasta, but she couldn’t find it anywhere!

Luckily, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement, and given that the store was nearly empty, she just assumed it was a worker coming to hurry her out.

As she turned, she blurted:

Sister: “I’m sorry, can you tell me where the cheap fresh pasta is?”

To her horror, it was not a worker.

It was Prince William.

His mates rounded the corner to enter the aisle just in time to hear the encounter and make it heartily awkward for my now mortified sister, who beat a hasty exit.

You may think it ends like this. Oh, no. To my sister’s embarrassment, it got worse.

The next day, she was on shift manning the VIP tent at work, and who should come along but Prince William and his entourage? There was no hope that they wouldn’t recognise her; her friend at the tent entrance made sure to radio her.

Friend: “Stupid [Supermarket] pasta chick! VIP incoming!”

Of course, on hearing that, they all knew her immediately! And so resulted another embarrassing moment for my sister — and a hilarious story for all of us!