Heaven’s Guest

The 1980’s were an amazing time. Restraint was out, excess was in. On TV you had shows like Miami Vice and Magnum P.I. reminding us that from Hawaii to Florida there were shady characters everywhere. In music, bands like Guns N’ Roses and Mötley Crüe were growing out their hair and powdering their noses with more than makeup. And 1980’s business was famously chronicled in movies like Wall Street and American Psycho that showed us that greed, while allegedly good, could lead to some unfortunate outcomes once in a while. 

And what about country clubs? What were they like in the 80’s? Like so many of their members, they operated fast and loose, which is how an impossible invite became possible for several fortunate bond traders that happened to be doing business with the right company. Here’s the story as we heard it:

Cypress Point sits along some of the most pristine coastline in all of California and the Alister MacKenzie designed course is routinely ranked among the top three golf courses in the world - and it is also one of the toughest invites. How tough? Rumor has it that John F. Kennedy was once refused membership. If you can get an invitation to play there someday, buy a lotto ticket immediately after because you have incredible luck.

In Los Angeles there was a wealthy and connected bond trader who we’ll call Bill Bonds that held one of the coveted memberships to Cypress. He was known to be stingy with invites and even though his company was paying his dues, he resisted their pleas for him to schmooze their top clients with an epic round of golf. Well, as you probably guessed, one day Bill Bonds dropped dead and the company figured they may as well keep paying his dues and seeing if they could pull off an all-time caper! 

As our source tells it, they would have a guy call up to the course imitating Bill’s gravelly voice and say something like this - “Hey, it’s Bill Bonds and I’ve got a couple of clients I want to get out on the course. I can’t make it up this time, but take good care of ‘em and be sure to let me know if they stiff the caddie!” 

The first time they tried it and, to their surprise, it worked. Figuring they had nothing to lose, they kept it up and every month they gave it another shot and it kept working. Our source got to play Cypress not once, but twice! As he puts it, “Both times I was the guest of a dead guy!”

To everyone’s surprise, the company was able to pull this stunt off for nearly two years until somebody at Cypress finally realized they hadn’t seen ol’ Billy Bonds in a while and they called his house to check on him. Once his wife informed them he had been dead for a couple of years the jig was up, but not before dozens of 1980’s bond traders got the opportunity to golf on one of the world’s greatest courses... with a little help from above!

Poll Question

Last Week's Poll Result

The member that sponsored Mr. Mann got a 90-day suspension. If you were the club's president, what punishment would you recommend to the board?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 90-days sounds about right (8)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Suspend him for a year (7)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Kick him out of the club! (10)

The story about how one guy made an ace, but played his hand like a Joker!

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