FORE!
Man, I’ve been waiting to say that for months.
A few weeks back my boss invited me to attend her son’s 11th birthday party. At first I was on the fence. Hang out with my boss and coworkers on a Saturday??? Then she told me the party would be at Gonzo’s.
Any excuse I can get to dust off my clubs in January is a good excuse, so I happily accepted. Now I’ve known about Gonzo’s for a while, but just have never had the chance to actually visit. So as I pulled into the unassuming building, I was itching with the excitement that only comes when you are arriving at a new golf course or a new bar for the first time. (Foreshadowing anyone?)
I took this photo from Gonzo’s website because I wanted to showcase just how low-key the front of this place is, but I was too excited to take pictures upon arrival, and too lazy to do so in the days following…
Gonzo’s is located in the middle of what appears to be a strip mall in South Burlington (sue me) on route 2, and is easy to drive past unless you are paying attention. Over the course of my observations of this city, I am beginning to learn that this is the rule, rather than the exception, for a lot of the best places to visit in this area.
I grabbed my clubs and bounded in through the doors, and was greeted with a pleasant surprise… apparently I had not only come to a golf facility, but I had come to a sports bar as well, pool tables and all. Solid.
After taking a look at the selection and ordering a Gonzo’s Draught (I find I ALWAYS have to order the house beer, especially if it is named after the establishment) I refocused and found my boss who showed me the way to the party.
The afternoon festivities were being held in a large party room at the back of the building. To get there, I really had to focus on following the hallway and try not to get distracted by the half-dozen projector screens throughout the main bar area. After watching a guy hit at a driving range for a few minutes, (and making sure my club speed was faster than what was listed for him), I again regained my focus and headed into the party.
When I got to the end of the hallway, I was happy to find a spacious room with a floor-to-ceiling projector screens on the right and left. This was going to be fun.
I wasted no time in getting to meet the birthday boy who, as luck would have it, was setting up what I believed to be the first of many rounds of golf to be played that afternoon. I happily accepted his invitation to hit and turned around to corral my clubs.
When I turned back a minute or two later, I was shocked by the screen. This was no golf course. This was a building. With windows. Windows that I was supposed to try to break. Windows that I was ALLOWED to try to break. In other words? This was every boy’s dream.
As luck would have it though, I’m no to good at breaking windows. This is probably a result of having an over active conscious as kid which kept me from breaking actual windows too often. But this isn’t therapy, so I’ll get back to the point: I went one for three on my pot shots, but had a good time.
It was clear though that this was just a silly game to the birthday boy and he quickly decided to set up the real (simulated) deal. He asked me, which I thought was really nice, where I wanted to play. The Old Course wasn’t on the simulator, so I “settled” for Pebble Beach.
If you look closely, you can see the real ball just below the screen.
As my boss’ 11 year old birthday boy settled on the tee, I realized that I was happy my boss had bought me a beer… because I was about to get beat by my boss’ 11 year old birthday boy.
His first shot was dead straight down the fairway, and he almost birdied the hole. I sheepishly tapped in my putt for a quadruple bogey and made some lame excuse about not being used to playing golf indoors.
Fortunately for me, I had an excellent second hole. Despite the crowd beginning to gather, I smoked a ball down the fairway and ended up parring out the hole.
But that is all the more golf I got to play. By this time, the place was really filling up with kids. Apparently the birthday boy was not only a good golfer, but he was popular as well. Basically, at 11 years old, the kid was cooler than me. But I’m not bitter or anything.
Not wanting to be a hog, I stepped away from the screen to let some of the other kids play while I sampled the house brew and mingled with coworkers and spouses I had never met. I had all but put golf out of my mind and was enjoying the evening when I heard some commotion.
I turned to check out the ruckus and was shocked by what I saw.
Field goals??? Huh?
Watching my shot, bending and trying to will it through the uprights. If you blow up the picture, you can see my ball in the black area in the mezzanine. It’s good!
Apparently, someone had the brilliant idea to take one great sport and combine it with another, and came up with a golfing field goal competition. I HAD to get down on this.
I teed up with general excitement and promptly hit my ball into the nosebleeds. (Apparently you shouldn’t hit your driver full swing if your target is only 120 yards away.) Learning from my mistakes, I again used my driver for my second attempt, but used a half swing and nailed the field goal.
And as the people cheered, I realized that the time had come to move on.
I had never been to Gonzo’s before the birthday party, but after breaking windows, sipping establishment-named beer, finally completing a blog request from Thuzmund, hitting 50% of my field goal attempts, and scoring a par at Pebble Beach, you can bet I’ll be back.
Until Next Time,
A Stranger Observing Burlington, Vermont – Elek
A Stranger Observes Burlington, Vermont 