The Story of Troy Blood

It’s no exaggeration that gold professionals spend more time with our coworkers than with our families during the peak season. If we’re lucky, those coworkers become our close friends. This was certainly the case with Troy Blood He’s a fascinating guy – in a ditzy, lovable, cartoon-character sort of way. His interests include everything, and he’s good at them all. He’s a riverboat gambler with a heart of gold, charmingly shallow most of the time – because his fly is down or there’s a booger half-hanging out his nose – then deeply sincere when you least expect it. He can’t make it through the day without ripping his pants or staining his shirt with some hot sauce that squirted out of a week-old taco he found under the driver’s seat in his car but ate anyway. He’ll three-putt from 2 feet when he’s your partner – then make a birdie from the trash can to kill you when he isn’t. To know Troy is to love him. And I was lucky enough to have him as my right-hand man. You may find it nice to know that rookie mistakes aren’t limited to amateurs. Shortly after I hired Troy at the private club, a venue in which he had no prior experience, he confessed that he didn’t know much about golf fashion and asked for some pointers. I obliged, suggesting we start with the basics (Greg’s Golf Fashion Rules, previously posted). Easy enough, right? On the following Monday I showed up to the Pro-Am tournament and was promptly greeted in the parking lot by another golf pro who inquired whether I’d seen Troy yet. “No, why?” I said. “You’ll see,” was the response. Great. This continued throughout my pre-round preparations, as pro after pro approached me and asked if I’d seen Troy… Finally, while I was walking down the 4th fairway, I spotted him coming toward me up the 17th and saw immediately why everyone was snickering. There was Troy, in a near see-through white hard-collared 1981 Seattle Seahawk coach’s shirt – unbuttoned to mid-sternum, with haystack plumes of black chest hair billowing out – a camouflaged hunting cap, mangled khaki cargo shorts, a brown belt, knee-high black socks, and black shoes. Wow! He looked ridiculous. Surely it was a joke on me, wasn’t it? I stormed over to see just what in the world he was thinking, and to remind him that he was publicly representing our brand-new facility for the first time. He saw me coming and could tell that I was furious. From across the fairway, he started shouting, “You said black socks with black shoes! You said black socks with black shoes!” Somehow, he’d omitted almost all the other rules. Honestly, I can’t believe that at some point he’d looked in the mirror before leaving his house and decided what he was wearing looked good. His outfit was awful, plain and simple – and everyone who saw him knew it, including the members of my team who each had something to say about it throughout the round. Sometimes golf fashion does matter! But, as always, it was Troy who had the last laugh. He shot 67 and won the tournament.