Water

The past two years, the southeastern United States has been under a severe drought. In fact, water has been in such low supply that the governors of the states of Alabama, Georgia and Florida have met on more than one occasion to discuss the flow of the Chattahoochee River and the river it dumps into, the Apalachicola. The Chattahoochee is a river I am very familiar with, as I grew up only short walk from its muddy banks.

The last two years, the muddy banks of the Chattahoochee have been more like baked red brick, however.

The strain on water has put many areas in the Southeast on water usage restriction. Such activities as watering one’s lawn has been, in some neighborhoods and cities, regulated or even outlawed. Even some golf courses have been required to cut back on the water they use in their irrigation system.

Frankly, I like irrigation systems on the golf course. Or rather, my Maxfli Blue Dots seem to love them, for they have an uncanny way of finding themselves sitting on top of a sprinkler head. On my last links expedition (for me it is never just a “round of golf”, but rather it is an expedition because I visit those areas of golf courses that the really good golfers never get to see), I teed off on a par 3, 150 yards uphill. Slight breeze in my face, just an easy 6-iron. And of course, my typical fade to the right put my ball between the green and a large kidney-shaped bunker. As I approached my ball sitting just beyond the skirt of the green, and leaning against the fixed spray head of an underground sprinkler, I knew I could take a drop. You guessed it. It started shooting a spray of water as soon as I leaned down to move my ball. I was soaked. Totally.

It reminded me of November, 1986.

Georgia was a three touchdown underdog to the #10 Auburn Tigers. Auburn was two wins away from clinching the Southeastern Conference Title. Georgia, playing with a backup quarterback, beat Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium 20-16. The Georgia fans, so thrilled with their upset victory over Auburn, stormed the field. Some say it was a timer. Some say it was a solenoid switch. Some say an Assistant Athletic Director switched on the switch. But whatever happened to turn it on, the irrigation system on the north-west corner of the stadium, where the red-clad bulldogs were celebrating both in the stands and on the filed, was turned on. Like a fire hose.

For all of posterity, that game now had a name. The Hose Bowl. I think of it every time I hit a golf ball and it lands on or around a sprinkler head.

And I realized something else that day, back in 1986. Nothing stinks like a wet dog.

War Eagle!

Jeff Lane