This year’s trip started earlier in the day and ended later in the evening. Even so, it seems as if it passed in a blur. And while parts of it were certainly blurry, that’s not the kind of blur I’m talking about. The pace of the trip at times made me want to throw up my hands and yell, “Slow down! I’m not ready.”
Rarely does the universe listen to me. As I tell the girls all the time, “I cannot change the nature of time.”
Friday morning found us driving north to Everett, not south to Seatac. And what a treat it was. After checking my golf bag, it took me ten minutes to shoot through Paine Field security—and that was only because I had a nine-minute conversation with one of the TSA agents about little league. Last year, after waiting in Seatac’s seemingly endless security line, I detoured into the men’s room on my way to the gate. If I had taken a dump instead of a pee, I may have arrived to the gate to see a closed door. So yeah, Paine Field is a game-changer.
As we flew to Sin City, red-hot Miles won the horse-racing money this year, and I lost a bunch of shots. Or won a bunch of shots. Either way, we never pay off the shots. So why do we bet shots? Tradition, dammit.
We landed a little more than three hours before check-in. Jonny Reno and I had researched a bit in advance and thus directed our driver to the Starboard Tack for lunch. As we pulled into the empty parking lot, G-$ and Miles tried to balk, but we didn’t let ‘em. I opened a heavy, creaking door into total darkness created by the glare outside combined with the relative gloom inside. As our eyes adjusted, we took in the surroundings. It was a worn-in, well-loved establishment. The bartender, a cross between Jay (of Jay & Silent Bob) and Sammy Hagar, quietly eyed us. Quietly, we found out later, because he was “hungover as shit.”
We seated ourselves four across at the bar, and before my ass had hit the stool, G-$ had pushed a bill into the video poker machine. Short pay, here we come. Sammy Jay Hagar swooped by and delivered three beers, a Ciro’s Special for Jonny Reno and a few menus. And we spent the next couple hours having a really tasty lunch, a few beers, and more shots than were prudent. Our driver at one point indicated we may want to slow it down.
“Can’t you regulate that yourself?” I asked him.
“Uh uh!” he replied emphatically, shaking his head like a cartoon character.
Miles hit a couple of 4’s of-a-kind, Jonny Reno hit a couple, and while I didn’t hit any 4’s of-a-kind, I did fill a nifty diamond straight flush (held 4-6-7-8, hit the 5) during the afternoon, so of the 4 of us, only G-$ had to go into his pocket for lunch. But it only cost us $30 each (including a huuuuuge tip) because Sammy Jay Hagar comped a ton of the beer and shots!
On our triumphant way out, Sammy Jay Hagar invited us to come back for Saturday night’s Jager celebration. He promised “a shit-ton of Jager,” among other frivolity. We nodded and replied affirmatively, though noncommittally. While the Tack was a terrific afternoon spot, we were not making an evening trip. Now, next year…
Check-in at the good ol’ Main Street Station was a breeze as usual, and the four of us were able to obtain two connecting rooms. While last year the Downtown Grand was superior in almost every other measurable characteristic, the lure of connecting rooms (and much lower rates) proved to be the deciding factor. We marched into our “two-bedroom suite,” dumped our stuff (some of us more neatly than others) and stomped downstairs to continue the afternoon’s video poker shootout.
We started back by the ol’ 8/5 Bonus coin-droppers. I gave G-$ my Royal Flush machine, but he didn’t crack it. With plenty of time before dinner, we changed things up, and hit the Go Go Golden Gate at happy hour. I took a seat next to Jonny Reno and tried to make some hay with 50-cent 8/5 Bonus, but didn’t cash. My “full-pay” video poker exploits were starting off poorly.
Suddenly, I found myself at the head of a craps table with Miles and G-$. We found a few rolls and got a ton of money out on the felt, but I could never get the extra 6 or 8 I needed to gain some ground, and retired from the table hungry and ready to break more early losing streaks.
Prices have gone up at the Top of Binion’s Steakhouse. The food, service and atmosphere atop the tower, looking down on Glitter Gulch, remain terrific, so although many of us experienced a little bit of sticker shock, I’m not sure there are any near-term future ramifications. Now, if that 25% off coupon from the LVA POV is not renewed, then I’ll have to consider other experiences, such as the Golden Steer or the Circus Circus steakhouse.
It was at what I think of as our “normal” table, in the south end of the room, where we lost our first soldier. The afternoon drinks, shots and beers, combined with his early-rising, hard-working schedule, took our man Miles down. Down so fast, in fact, that he didn’t wait until after dinner to start snoozing. He began to doze during dessert, and was full-on asleep by the time we paid the tab. We respectfully departed from the table and took a photo of the man, now all by himself at the 12-top. We leaned towards the elevators…
…and stopped. Although the wait staff had volunteered to let him sleep for a while (“He’ll be fine until 11!”), we took pity on our friend and woke him up. Dazed and confused, he made his way downstairs and an escort took him up to his room (via the roulette wheel). There would be no late-night White Castle visit for Miles on this night.
Meanwhile, I took my customary detour to the Million Dollar Photo counter, collected our stack of awesome souvenirs, and delivered them safely to my room. History has shown that any other plan is foolhardy; the only way to get home with those photos is to stash them as soon as they become mine. Otherwise, they get ditched at a random blackjack table.
Meanwhile meanwhile, the rest of the gang visited the single-zero roulette wheel at the Plaza, intending to make millions on our “golf bets,” bets made on golf courses throughout the year (and in this case, several previous years) that are only payable in chips and redeemable only if they come off the table as a longshot winner. No one hit.
I finally reconnected with the gang, or at least a small part of it, at a card table at the Main Street. G-$ and I enjoyed a mellow, quiet game and I made my craps losses back. Now on a roll, we circled back to the Go Go Golden Gate, where I continued the blackjack streak. Even though I swung and missed with the $25 matchplay chip, I ended the session up $200, $100 of which I donated to the Plaza while chasing its $25 matchplay. I did turn the $10 in free play into 10 actual dollars though, but by this time I think I was alone, or at least close enough to it that it was time for bed.
Friday night was unusual—it was the first time I can remember that I didn’t end the evening having breakfast with Miles and G-$. I think situations like that contributed to my perception of the trip’s pace. But I digress.
The centerpiece of our day Saturday would be watching the Huskies try to reverse their collective desert curse, but the game would not begin until 7:30, so we had a full day to ourselves until kickoff. Sims, thanking a few of us for arranging a free room for him, bought the champagne brunch at the Main Street.
After brunch, I wandered around with Miles, Mattt and G-$ to find some video poker. They weren’t up for the 8/5 coin-droppers in the back, so we wandered to the front to see if there was anything interesting. We found a pair of mutli-hand super-times pay machines and down we sat, Miles playing 10 hands at a time, me playing just 5. On my right, Mattt fired up some quarter 5-play. G-$ made himself scarce. Cocktail service and 4’s-of-a-kind came just rapidly enough to keep us in place.
About an hour in, Mattt elbowed me none too gently. “Check it,” he said, waving his Coors Light bottle at the screen. Whoa. Lots of high diamonds filled the screen. “Just need one,” he said, and hit the Deal/Draw.
Bam! The 4th hand filled, and just like that, Mattt had his 3rd lifetime royal flush! We snapped a few photos, clinked beer bottles a few times, and kept right on rolling. A Saturday morning royal gave us a great chance at filling another, but nobody would find another during the weekend. Drat.
We were soon ready for a change of venue, so we wandered down to the Downtown Grand via the Cal sports book where we put some dough on the Dawgs minus 7 (Miles put $340 on the money line, God bless ‘im). We enjoyed some stellar cocktail service—which I’m actually starting to take for granted at the DTG, so keep it up people—while we played some 8/5 bonus poker.
The Las Vegas Husky supporters have moved their home base from Jacksons to Scooters. We’d join the supporters this year, but this locals hang-out is a million miles from where we usually hang out. In planning our trip, we embraced the remote location and designed a day centered around it. Calling the Silverton “on the way” from downtown to Scooters is kind of like calling The Starboard Tack “on the way” from the airport to downtown, so I suppose this was a theme for the trip. The Silverton—and Wilner—delivered though.
As we made our way into the Silverton entry, brought to you by Bass Pro Shops, Wilner elbowed his way to the front of the queue and over to the Icee® counter, ordering one with vodka. Mattt followed suit, opting for vodka with his as well. Intrigued, I took a taste of Wilner’s. It was indeed packing the heat—and the counter had tequila as well—but I opted against ordering my own. Perhaps that was for the best…although I managed to get myself good and blitzed without one.
Boozy Icee® in hand, Wilner indulged his inner chick and played some Sex In The City slots. While it was amusing for a couple of spins, I was not about to try it myself. G-$ and Miles were also playing penny slots, so I wandered off, looking for a quarter video poker game to park at until this year’s Duel in the Desert would begin. I decided to try a bit of 9/5 DDB, mostly because as I walked past the bank, I spied a nearby cocktailer and requested a beverage.
Service was swell, so I milked my twenty along, hoping to catch a 4 of-a-kind and head to the DitD a modest winner. And indeed I caught one: 4 deuces, with a kicker! Modest my ass.
Only a short while later—not nearly enough time for me to dump those 200 smackers back into the machine—G-$ and Miles started to rally the troops for the DitD. Just a few steps away, teams were divided. As usual, I bought my squad—the 3 Dave’s, Jared and Hanley—a round of beers (diet Coke for David) and circled them up for a strategy conversation.
My game plan was similar to previous years; after all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I asked the Dave’s to lead it off in round one, playing the minimum of 30 hands and then pausing for instructions. Round 2 players would help them count and engage in any false celebration plays we might run.
Thirty hands in, Wilner was done. With a full house under his belt, I felt like his credit total would not be beaten. He was like a thoroughbred wanting to run, though, so it was hard to keep him from hitting buttons. Similarly, Drummond also hit a full house, though it took him a bit longer to do it. Sergent would be my loser in this round, taking his credits down to zero. But as I thought, we’d taken the first round, 2-1.
Needing just 1 win to force sudden death, and 2 wins to take the match outright, I felt good as I went into action with Jared and Pat. At thirty hands, Jared was holding pretty steady, Pat was in decent shape, and I was sinking fast. When Pat hit a good hand, I asked him to pull the plug. I took my credits to zero, so it was all up to Jared. Were his early hits enough, or would he need to hit something else? As the minutes ticked by, I got more and more nervous. So with 3 minutes to play, I told Jared to play 3 more hands, then sit. He hit a straight on the first of those hands, so I excitedly told him he was done.
As so was Team Nedved, 4-2. We cashed all the tickets, doled $40 to each of Team Gimbl’s players, and drank some celebratory shots of tequila, poured reverently from the head of an alien.
It’s likely I had one (two? three?) shot(s?) too many, though, because I spent a lot of the Husky game in a semi-comatose state. Maybe this was a good thing, because I seem to remember a lot of guys getting themselves lathered up during a frustrating first half.
The Huskies pulled away in the second half, eventually covering the line easily and providing lots of winning sports bet tickets all around. Drunkenness pulled away from Gimbl in the second half too, and when we got back downtown, I ran a fly route to bed, making it a pretty early night.
I woke up very refreshed on Sunday morning and wandered down to the Clark Street Starbucks to fetch coffee and breakfast sandwiches for the boys. The street was quiet, almost eerily quiet, so I kept my head up and my feet moving. I didn’t see anything or anyone to really get scared about, but I stayed alert.
Breakfast delivery was sleepily received and warmly appreciated, and in no time at all we had commandeered a very understanding Lyft driver who loaded her minivan with 7 dudes and bags of clubs for the short-ish ride out to Angel Park. We played the Palm course this year, and it was an enjoyable day. The course was in great shape, though I must say I wish there were more yardage markers.
My 4-some of Miles, G-$, Jonny Reno and myself lost the front side by carding a +1, but we won the back with a -2 score. We paid off the bets at the DTG roulette wheel after dinner, but again, no one hit anything. I guess the casino won all the golf bets this year.
For the past few years, I’ve been having some terrific luck with post-steak dinner spots. Last year, Pizza Rock and Casa don Juan both hit the spot. It might be a bit of a stretch to call Le Thai a game-changer, but I needed two to make my headline work, so suck it. Le Thai was freaking great.
The keepers: Tom Kha with chicken and the chicken Pad Thai. The Tom Kha in particular was delicately awesome, with plenty of lemon grass notes. Sims might have put his face in his bowl. The table also enjoyed the 3 Color curry and the Ginger fried rice, but the other noodle dish we had came in last place, but only because everything else was so friggin good.
Throughout dinner, G-$ and I talked about gambling on something “brand-new.” As there aren’t really any new games that aren’t chump games, we agreed that this meant taking a flyer. So after feasting at Le Thai, we circled the pit at the Downtown Grand looking for our target. After an orbit or two, we opened up an Ultimate Texas Hold’em table mostly because the dealer was friendly and promised she’d help us through the game.
Most of us adopted a Pai Gow-type strategy of mainly trying to minimize losses, generate some pushes, and maximize table time. That worked for me for a couple hands, but after a couple more, I realized that Pai Gow offers much more of an opportunity to break even and hang out. My conservative strategy had me slowly circling the drain. I decided to play the bonus circles, hoping to catch a big hand. $90 later, I called it quits. Luckily though, I stayed at the table to witness Miles take my more aggressive approach to kamikaze levels. Most everyone had either given up or busted out, while he still had a few bucks. He put ‘em all out on the various circles according to the table rules and limits. He received a decent hand, which because of the bonuses ended up a winner, so he piled more money on the circles.
He did this 5 or 6 times, finally retiring with about 2 or maybe 3 times his original stake. Attaboy.
Inspired by Miles’ brilliant Texas Hold’em skills, I hustled to the slot club counter to redeem my $10 matchplay coupon. Perhaps I could have a similar run of luck…
Why yes, yes I could. I won my first hand, let the $30 ride on the next hand and won it, left a bunch of it out there on the next hand and won it, and so on. Ten minutes later, I had my Hold’em money back.
So naturally it was time to find G-$ at a penny slot to lose some of it back. I don’t remember what game we played, but as usual I played the part of Sucker while G-$ and possibly Miles won a bit. I left those doofuses to their own devices and headed over to the bar to see some of the boys. Hanley had just finished up a successful run, while Jonny Reno, Doug, Dave and Mattt were all plugging away. I took a $200 flyer on dollar 8/5 bonus but couldn’t find a 4 of-a-kind.
We bullshitted a bit at the main bar, then decided it was time for a few tiny burgers. Surprised, Sergent agreed to accompany us, if only to see the stupidity involved in eating so much bad-for-you food so late. We took our burgers back to the Main Street, choosing to chow in front of our tv instead of within the colorful environs of the White Castle.
We arrived home, bags of burgers in hand, to find that the Main Street had no running water. Which is too bad, because it got unpleasant in a hurry in the toilet bowl. Luckily, on Monday morning we were moving over the Suncoast. Even more luckily, I only had to ask once before Sunday night’s accommodations were comped. And even still more luckily, the Suncoast waived our early check-in fee because we had no running water at our previous hotel. All in all, moving hotels worked out for us on Monday morning. And just like that, we had some breakfast and made our way across the street to Angel Park for the 11th annual Chug ‘N’ Putt Gamblepalooza.
Except…Jonny Reno emerged from the club house to tell us that in fact, we could not check in because the course did not have enough carts. So we hung out and waited. In years past, standing around waiting for carts as our tee times approached and passed would have sent me into cardiac arrest. It’s important to me that things go smoothly, that things run on time, and my friends occasionally drive me absolutely batshit with their dilly-dallying around. But with this event, I’ve been focusing the last couple years on adopting a more no duele attitude toward this thing. After all, despite stretching the bounds of golf etiquette to the breaking point and beyond, in 11 years we’ve never had a problem with the staff or the cocktail wagon out on the Cloud Nine course. We have had groups behind us roar past in their carts, cutting their day short or skipping on to the next hole, but none have been brave (or pissed off) enough to stop and confront us. So, I’ve been saying to myself, why am I getting worked up? No duele, dude.
As we waited, we bullshitted in a loose circle, occasionally looking over to the cart area to see a cart emerge from the shed and get clubs loaded onto it for golfers playing one of the full-size courses. Mattt and Sergent announced the head-to-head holes, designed to pit close pals and former roommates against each other, turning camaraderie into rivalry. I’d see my birthday buddy Jonny Reno on two holes and Team Sergent #1 pick Jeff Sims on one more.
Eventually, we found ourselves some carts and buggied out to the #1 tee for photos and shots. For this 11th version of the CNPGP, we would be allowing team captains to Double Down on head-to-head match-ups, provided they liked their golfer’s tee shot. Captains of course had to double immediately after their golfer shot—they couldn’t wait to see what his head-to-head foe would do. My team captain, Mattt, had informed me he would be very aggressive, pushing the action in the hopes of making opponents crumble.
So when I strolled up to the tee box and calmly plunked my tee shot onto the center of the green, Mattt boldly declared, “Double Down!” And we were off. My opponent for the hole, Jonny Reno, put his tee shot over the green and Mattt smiled broadly, possibly getting an early start on counting his $10 winner.
But Jonny’s shot wasn’t in bad shape, and he fired a dandy chip shot up near the flag. I yoinked my putt, leaving it well short and well right. Jonny completed his up-and-down while I rolled my second putt past the hole, and just like that, the tables had been unpredictably turned. My 3-putt earned me a first-hole shotgun while my 4 earned me an early bogey. Ugh.
I overshot the second green, leaving myself a tricky downhill comebacker. The ball was slightly plugged just beyond the fringe, putting me between clubs. Aye carumba, this round was not starting off too well. I needed to find a par here or I’d find myself starting to fade out of contention—and it was just the second hole! I chose putter over wedge and managed to get it up and out without blasting it past the hole. G-$, Sims and Miles had made the green, while Jonny Reno had negotiated his own downhill chip. Finally, Miles lined up behind his ball, eyeing an uphill putt of 15 feet or so. He left it short.
“YOU SUCK!”
We looked up to see a white pick-up roaring along South Rampart. And then burst into laughter. Timing is everything.
I sunk the par putt. I didn’t know it at the time, but that par putt ushered in the most remarkable round of my life. I don’t know if I’ll ever golf better, so if this trip report ends up being a little too heavy on golf details, that’s too bad.
#3 was a KP hole. This hole plays anywhere from 145 to 175 yards depending on placement of the tee markers. Today it was playing pretty short, and I ripped a terrific 7-iron right at the stick. It drifted just a tad left and from the tee box Sims thought it had rolled too far past the hole. But this green is a long uphill green; because I could still see my ball I knew it was close. I gave the birdie putt a decent chance but missed it on the high side. As others in my 5-some finished up their third-hole adventures, I completed the par.
Then I almost hit a hole-in-one. Displaying tempo I’d focus on and execute all day long, I planted my 2/3rds pitching wedge at about two feet, and it rolled to within 3 inches. Three more ball revolutions would have put it in the hole. What fun it was to stand on that elevated tee and look down on that ball. I yelled at Sims, who had estimated the hole’s length at “90 yards” on the day.
“Sims! It’s clearly playing 90 yards, 2 feet today! You asshole! You cost me a hole-in-one!”
“Sorry, man.”
I completed my first birdie of the day holding my trusty putter in one hand and my trusty Coors Light in the other.
#5 was an unremarkable bogey, but #6, a notoriously difficult hole that I’d spotlighted in this year’s Captain’s Guide, was another something special. I found the back fringe with my tee shot—a victory in itself on this narrow, treacherous hole. When the other guys had reached the green, I saw the line breaking just a bit down towards the ravine and hit something I thought would get close. The putt rolled into the left-side of the hole and I celebrated like a mad man. With that birdie, I was back to an even-par pace.
I found out later that my birdie there wasn’t the only, nor the best, birdie on #6 that day. Jase, looking like Dorf on Golf as he addressed a ball on the extreme edge of one of #6’s many sand traps, knocked a remarkable chip shot into the hole. Nice work, Jase!
At this moment, I needed just 3 pars in the next 6 holes to be in the neighborhood for contention. I’d been here before, but never with this kind of momentum.
So naturally I airmailed the #7 green. Never found the ball and settled for what I hoped would be a throwaway 5. Now I needed 3 pars in 5 holes.
I must confess, being in the middle of a two-birdie round made me a little self-absorbed. But as Jonny Reno approached the #8 tee box—a hole on which we’d compete head-to-head—he was also in the middle of a personal-best-type round. He’d played bogey golf for 7 holes. With his 8-handicap, he needed to find just 2 pars in the next 5 holes to tie his personal best and give himself a handicap-adjusted, sub-par round that would put him in the mix for a second title.
I didn’t really find that out until after he had melted down and gone ballistic.
Like #3, #8 was also playing a little short on this day. Which sucks, because #8, facing into the wind and funneling uphill, always plays a little long. I was truly between clubs: I wanted to hit a 7-iron, but needed to trust my 8-iron—which itself was probably too much club given how the hole was playing today.
Jonny Reno must have been similarly conflicted. Either that or just massacred his ball. Whatever the case must be, he blasted a beautiful-looking, majestic shot…that he never found.
In my opinion, being able to separate a great shot from a shitty result is one of the most important skills for us amateur golfers. Whenever I put one on the screws, I try to celebrate the shot—even if it ends up rolling into a trap I thought wasn’t possibly in play.
Easy for me to say, I suppose, because I found my colossally poor tee shot back on the #9 tee box and finished with a bogey. Jonny never found his ball and fell apart on the hole, going back and forth across the green and somehow walking away with a 10. Still seething, he stormed to the #9 tee box and laced one.
Meanwhile, I now needed 3 pars in 4 holes. I needed to remain positive and calm. I hit a fine tee shot to the back of the green and three-putted it back into the cup at the front of the green. (It’s always at the front of that damn green.) The bogey 4 gave me a tie against head-to-head opponent Sims, who hit a real tester to halve the hole with me. Nice putt, Sims.
But now I needed 3 pars in the next 3 holes. I said as much to Team Sergent captain David as he strolled to the #10 tee box. I must have seemed arrogant as I said it, because he replied, “You think you got this thing wrapped up?”
“No way. I’m having a really good day. But I still need 3 pars. And then we’ll see.”
Sims and Jonny, head-to-head opponents on #10, teed off first. Sims hit a beauty onto the back of the green. Jonny, unfortunately, hit his tee shot to the dry lake bed at back right. He let us know how he felt using a string of loud 4-letter words.
My tee shot was more Sims than Jonny, so my only remaining hazard on the hole was getting nailed by any number of golf balls Jonny fired out of the dry lake bed towards us. I routinely two-putted to finish my par.
And as Jonny raged into our cart, I made a decision I’d been mulling for several holes. I drove with him to the #11 tee box, and then moved my bag onto Sims’ cart. I did it for a couple reasons. First, because I wanted those two pars. I’d felt my dad’s presence (or maybe made it up) when I tapped that oh-so-close birdie in on #4, and if he was truly watching me, I wanted to finish this round. And I wasn’t going to get those pars if I weren’t calm and single-mindedly focused on making two more great swings and 4 more solid putts. But also, here I was, in the middle of this remarkable round, and I just wasn’t having enough fun. Over the last several holes, culminating in this brutal 3-hole stretch, my cart rides with Jonny had gone from fun, to bearable, to silent and sullen. This kind of golf was unprecedented for me and I wanted to be enjoying it more.
Sims didn’t ask any questions as I loaded my bag and slid into the seat next to him. That lack of curiosity told me I was at least somewhat justified in abandoning Jonny. Instead, Sims started complimenting me on my current round. In particular, he pointed out that my tempo was really terrific. I appreciated the words and told him that yes indeed, I’d been really trying to maintain my swing pace all day long.
#11 was our last KP of the day. G-$ would tee off before me, and knocked a beauty up there, 11.5 David Sergent paces away from the hole. My tee shot ended up just 11 David Sergent paces away, giving me a second KP on the day.
After the other guys had reached the green, G-$ lined up his putt and stroked it in for a birdie 2.
“Yeah! Fuck yeah!” he exclaimed. “Gimbl, if you don’t make it, you should have to give me the KP money!”
I didn’t agree, but it didn’t matter because I rolled the little right-to-left breaker into the right-center of the cup. Twin twos for G-$ and me, the second time in our lives we’d accomplished that feat. (The first time, when we both eagled the short par-4 18th hole at Maplewood, is a story for another day.)
We hugged and yelled, each celebrating the other’s birdie. “Because that’s what we do!” shouted G-$.
I climbed onto the #12 tee box with a personal-best 9-hole score of 27 already in hand. One more par would allow me to dump another bogey and finish with a sub-par 9-hole round. What a turnaround since that lousy first hole. And with just a few swallows left in my 6th beer of the round, I was in tight compliance with the CNPGP drinking rules. So as I approached what I hoped would be my last iron shot of the day, I really tried to focus on that tempo. Just one shot.
I hit it. I loved it. Sims lost it in the sun. “Where’d it go?” he inquired.
“It’s off to the right a little bit,” I replied.
As we drove up the slight incline to the green, Sims caught sight of my ball, sitting just past pin-high, some 10 or 12 feet from the hole.
“I thought you said it was to the right.”
“It is,” I replied. I pointed. “It’s to the right of the pin.”
He gave me a stone-cold stare. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself,” he deadpanned. “Jeezus Christ.”
A voice in my head, part my dad’s, part my own, and part Coors Light, told me to give the putt a chance. “Hey,” the voice said. “Nothing to lose here. You’re playing with house money. Give it a chance. Trust the pace.”
Okay.
Birdie 2. My 4th of the day. My 4th in 12 holes. A gross score of +2 38 for the round. Tossing the 3 worst holes, that’s a -2 25 net. While crazy things can happen with handicaps, I didn’t think the day’s champion would be anyone but me.
Yeah, I celebrated. And yeah, by this point I was probably a bit insufferable. But damn, what a round. I sat down in the shade next to Miles, not even attempting to contain my shit-eating grin.
“Well, that was fun,” I started.
“Yeah, yeah. Shut up.”
After dinner and the CNPGP awards ceremony at The Game, we hit the gambling floor. I talked Miles into playing some Multi Strike, then filled my role as luckless knuckleheaded sidekick for some more penny slots with Miles and G-$, then pulled up stakes and found a few cards at the blackjack table to end the evening on a winning note. My belly was crammed full of bar food and Coors Light, so I had switched to gin & soda. When I slid clumsily off the stool to join Miles, the gin gave me a not-so-gentle slap in the face.
“I gotta go bed,” I told Miles.
Our last day in Vegas began like most of our last days in Vegas, with breakfast at Mr. Lucky’s over at the Hard Rock. And I guess this will be my last visit to the Hard Rock, as the transformation to Virgin Las Vegas will erase the HR brand. I’m hoping that HR finds its way back to Las Vegas, either as a Strip purchase-and-remodel (Cosmopolitan, anyone?) or as a new venture. I’ve always loved that casino, even though its early days of offering generous giveaways and comps and featuring a favorable assortment of games are long past. I’ve loved the memorabilia, the music, the layout and, of course, the cocktailers. Vaya con Dios, Hard Rock.
After having an amazing country fried steak and a terrible bloody Mary, we attempted to win Megabucks. We did not, but I did last quite a while on my investment. Much longer than Miles and newcomer Sims, who wanted in on the million-dollar action.
Not wanting to spend the day at the HRH, we finally decided to cross the Strip and head for the Palms for the day. After valeting the car, we snaked through the casino, found a bank of quarter 8/5 bonus machines, and plopped down. As the cocktailer drifted by again and again, I floated along on a single $20 for most of the afternoon. No huge winners, but no death-dives to zero either.
We crossed the street for an early dinner at the Ping Pang Pong, which narrowly edged out Battista’s in our vote. The chow was terrific as usual, but as we exited the restaurant it was now count-down time. For the final time this trip, I played the role of Sucker, getting no bonus rounds or even any real enjoyment on my Aliens from the Planet Moolah machine. But even though I donated about $150 to penny slots on the weekend, my gambling results over the five days of the trip were in the plus at $68.
And my golfing results will live on forever, or at least as long as my friends allow me to keep talking about them.
