Fore

Of course I'm prejudicial. And you're not? At least I have a system, a method to my mad prejudices. When faced with meeting a person, I quickly apply my elevator test: What would it be like to be stuck indefinitely in an elevator with this person? Might I commit murder in the first fifteen minutes? When meeting two people, I apply the Simon & Garfunkel test: Which one's Paul, which is Artie? Things, as you can imagine, develop from there. Three people, it's the Love Triangle question: Which one's bound to be the odd one out--that's my new compadre. Five people, I envision a basketball team and gravitate naturally toward the point guard. Six on up it's a crapshoot; I usually find myself bonding with either the cutest, the richest-seeming, or, most effectively, the one who is most likely to listen to the most Bob. Criticize my methods, sure, but I've got the best friends in the world; you can't argue with success.

But you notice that I skipped a group of four people. Yes, that one's a bit trickier. Whereas the other tests are usually pretty quick and intuitive, a foursome (for whatever reason) calls for a lengthier examination, one based on hard empirical evidence. I can't help it, I've got caddie blood in me, probably because my most impressionable years (age 13-22) were spent looping it, hauling golf bags and chasing carts and catering to the whims of golfers of all stripes. A lifetime education indeed. Thus, when confronted with meeting four people at once, I take my time and envision caddying for them over the course of four (one hopes) or maybe even six (forget it, I'll go it alone, folks) hours.

And so, confronted (an apt word, I believe) with the four remaining Republican candidates for the Presidency (full disclosure--not that I'm likely to vote for any of them, especially when I would never vote for two of them), I've decided to make my caddie test of them public, in the hope, as always, that my words do not necessarily merely persuade, but truly enlighten.

The most difficult job for a caddie is the two-walker, two-rider foursome. You lug two bags and tend to every need of the walkers while still having to keep eyes on the two riders, spotting their golfballs' travels, raking everybody's sandtrap mess, reading putts, cleaning balls, fetching clubs, pampering one and all. An ADHD nightmare, especially if the sun's blazing hot and the breeze is on strike.

Romney and Santorum are the walkers while Newt and RonPaul (some kind of weird amalgamation of RuPaul and Pope John Paul II I keep seeing there) ride. The first introduction for a caddie to the next four plus hours of his life, even before meeting the golfers, is the load--the bags he will carry, which often is all he needs to know about how the day is going to go. Romney's bag is sleek, relatively light, and very manageable. Santorum's is too big with a too small strap that will dig into your shoulder all day. The clubs are of the department store variety and are separated in the bag by individual "tubes"--not a good sign. Add to that the extendable ball-retriever that can't be quite unextended so that it sticks out of the bag like a giraffe amongst horses and the short little golf towel, emblazoned with the logo of some Kiwanis outing from seven years ago, attached to the bag with a metal hoop which will dig into your thigh all day, and already you're cursing this guy.

Get to the first tee for the introductions. Romney, dressed nattily, introduces himself to you right away and asks your name, and you know he won't forget it and will call you by it throughout the round. Santorum just says hi and proceeds to duck into the bag and spend five minutes sifting through dozens of balls to come up with two decent ones (never the same make) to stuff into his pocket. You naturally uncover his driver and hand it to him and he politely says, "No, I can't hit that. I tee off with my five iron, usually." You immediately want to kill him, to save yourself from five hours of torture, but there's something kind of tolerable about him, a small guy out playing with the big guys, an underdog in this foursome, that makes you think, based on past experience, that he might be the only one you like by the 18th green, and the only one to come through with a decent tip. So you leave the jury out on him and stroll over to the cart to meet those duffers and see if there's any way you can ingratiate yourself with them from the start.

RonPaul acts like you don't exist, in fact like nobody exists, and you wonder how he got into this foursome to begin with. His bag is old (a Burton, I believe) and crammed with even older clubs, a genuine "niblick" and woods, actual woods. He's dressed decently, if not fashionably. As you start cleaning off Newt's very old-mud-encrusted clubs (there must be seventeen of them in the bag, you estimate, and are thankful his large, garish, six-toned bag is sitting on the cart and not your shoulder), he introduces himself by farting loudly as he waddles off the seat and, with no further salutation, tells you to clean up the three Top-Flites he hands you absently. His shorts are too short and his purple golf shirt has sweat stains on it and looks impossible to tuck in short of giving the guy a cardiac arrest.

Romney, the de facto chief of this foursome, expertly spins his tee to determine partners and honors. When RonPaul dribbles his first shot, Romney graciously tells him to take a Mulligan. Santorum's five iron dives wickedly right off the tee; his Mulligan merely slices into the rough 150 yards out and he seems deeply relieved as you reach for the club; "No, I use this until I'm up around the green." A definite hack, you realize, but at least he'll be easy to deal with, you think. Romney looks like a real golfer right away as he tees up his ball, takes a couple practice swings, goes through an efficient and well-grooved pre-shot routine, and laces his drive straight down the middle well over 250 yards. Well alright, you think. You look hopefully up at the clouds as Newt limbers up, exposing his ample white belly. "Shit," he mutters as his first shot dribbles barely past the ladies tee; by the time he gets to "-it" of the shit he's got another ball out of his pocket and teed up again. "Crap," he says a little louder as his Mulligan pops up to the right and knocks around a half dozen branches before meekly bouncing back up the cart path. As he puts another ball on the tee, Santorum seems a little offended. "Are we playing 'hit 'til you're happy'?" "This isn't a Mulligan," Newt announces. "The third is called a Callista." He promptly strokes it right into the creek running along the left side of the fairway. "Damn wind. I'll drop from up there," he announces as he shoves his driver back into his bag and dives into a pocket in search of more balls.

As an experienced looper, you can almost predict the entire round just from the doings on the first tee. Santorum blithely walks the right rough with his five iron, requiring little assistance until he finally gets close to the green, where you hand him this "trusty" chipper and then his putt-putt putter. You double check him as he stands on the green looking back over the hole and visibly recounts his strokes; he's always honest when reporting his sevens and eights and occasional fives. RonPaul's short game is pretty impressive, saving him countless bogeys and a few pars. Your only interaction with him is on the 13th green when you pick up his pitching wedge for him. "Thank you," he kind of whispers and heads back to the cart. Romney's easy. He's usually in the fairway and actively seeks your valued input. After telling him to hit the seven instead of the eight on the third hole because it's more uphill than it looks and the wind's picking up, he sticks it to within four feet, smiles, and says, "Good call." From then on he relies on your club selection and reads. He magnanimously gives not so short putts, though Newt quickly takes advantage of this and gives himself all his third putts. Callistas abound for Newt and he's constantly talking about how the layout of the course could be better, what kind of grass the greens should be, and how they need to move that bunker over there--the one he never offers to rake. He calls you "son" all the time and leaves two or three clubs per hole on the green for you to retrieve. Needless to say, the rule about staying on the cart path and walking to your ball doesn't apply to him. By the turn you've lost track of your mental math adding up the differences between his actual strokes and the "gimme a five" he boldly announces after picking up his ball. Afterwards you try to remember if he ever holed out.

After the round RonPaul quietly hands you a twenty and says, "Thank you." Santorum, seemingly proud that he almost broke 100, pats you on the back awkwardly and gives you all the loose change from his pocket and fails to notice the absence of his ball retriever which, on general purposes, you tossed in the pond behind the 14th green. "My favorite hole, the 19th," Newt announces as he walks right past your ostentatiously outstretched hand; lucky for you, he left behind in the cart the third package of Oreos he bought from the beer cart girl. So at least you've got that going for you, which is nice. Romney thanks you by name and shakes your hand vigorously as he hands you a crisp fifty. Nice guy, you think, but you get the feeling he's just going through the motions, as he has all day.