Have you ever found yourself fleeing through a heavily forested golf course at midnight, pursued by a mob of enraged golfers with guns?

It was the summer of '71.  Burnt Run CC (not the actual name) was a small town southern pseudo-country club inhabited mostly by good people, poor golfers, and rural socialites.  On one fateful night, something terrifying took place and the result was Dad's forcible abdication from his role as Burnt Run Pro/GCS/GM/F&B and Recreation Director.

Prior to the annual 3 day midsummer tournament and dance--an event that more closely resembled something Caligula would have organized--I was given a special assignment.  In addition to my normal duties as cart boy, bag boy, pool boy, range picker boy, underage crew worker and 15 year-old Night Waterman, I was selected to guard "The Treasure".

The treasure referred to here consisted of entry fee cash, prizes like golf clubs, balls, shoes . . . and trophies, also known as "graven images" by Southern Baptist church ladies.

Normally I would have merely had to do course prep, water all night and grab a short nap while mowing greens the next morning, but Dad suspected the gang of varlets, knaves and scoundrels who burglarized the pro shop during the Memorial Day tournament might return and steal the treasure . . . again.

I, along with Walker, a fellow teenage crew worker, were issued a shotgun and told to lock ourselves in the darkened pro shop all night, where we cowered in fear while listening to the licentious revelry taking place upstairs in the grand ballroom.

Just before midnight, the alcohol-fueled chaos spilled out of the ballroom and spread to the practice green, where the more amorous celebrants conspired to break into our cart barn** and liberate the fleet of Harley-Davidson gas carts for romantic moonlit tours of the course.

**Historical Note:  As we were still in the early days of cart infestation, we did not have a cart barn, but sequestered our carts inside the chain link fence surrounding the pool.  

A board member produced a set of bolt-cutters from his truck, cut the padlock that secured our fleet of rolling sofas and in doing so, unleashed anarchy upon the golf course.  Some of the revelers were so enthusiastic that they roared out onto the course with the wrong spousal units.

Walker and I had strict orders not to bother Dad with minor stuff, as he had to get up early and run the tournament, so I fell back on my public school education and took action.  I left Walker to remain on guard, in case this was merely an elaborate diversion by the burglars to lure us away, and I went forth to round up the perpetrators.

Almost immediately, I encountered Board Member Guy (BMG) parked on #16 green, engaged in serious romantic friction with a non-spousal unit and I recognized several problems:  First, they were parked on a green, 2nd--they were adulterizing and third . . . well, they were parked on a green.

I stalked them through dark shadows, monitored their activity, (again, I was 15) and then from close proximity--about two feet--fired the shotgun into the air.  The fiery muzzle blast produced considerable shock, along with a severe concussive effect.  There was also some impressive screaming from both the man and the woman, and perhaps me as well.

BMG furiously pumped the accelerator, in the manner of someone stomping out a fire, and when the cart lurched forward, his passenger, Fully Pregnant Non-Spousal Unit (FPNSU) was ejected onto the green surface.  BMG made no attempt to rescue her.

The FPNSU began to shriek in the Hitchcockian "Psycho" shower scene manner, (I can still hear her to this very day) and within seconds, the entire back nine came alive with gas carts making for the club house, the parking lot and maybe even the highway.

BMG heroically made it to his truck and realizing there were witnesses about, decided not to flee.  Instead, he grabbed a pistol and recruited a posse to hunt down the madman running loose upon the course.  Deprived of pitchforks and torches, the mob headed toward #16 brandishing flashlights, pistols and an axe handle or two.

They soon encountered a furious FPNSU who was clearly more disturbed by BMG's unchivalrous behavior than the shotgun-toting madman, but the mob did what mobs do, and swept on by, leaving her in the dark.

Fortunately for me, none of the mob had brought their hounds to the dance, (I know, pretty unusual) so I was able to evade them by running through the thick woods between holes.  I sought sanctuary in the darkened pro shop with Walker and remained there until just before daylight, when I began the process of retrieving golf carts from all over the course.  I was washing and gassing them up--except for two carts I couldn't find--and putting them back into the roof-less chain link cart barn when Dad arrived.  

Dad had already heard BMG's version of the night's events, minus the cart rustling part, so he was pretty well raging.  The whole affair turned into a cover up, with BMG attempting to control a mass extra-marital scandal of epic scale.  Like any political disaster, a scapegoat was needed, so Walker was banished from golf that morning, never to return.

Dad considered killing me and Momma wanted to exile me to mopping floors at Woolworth's for my grandfather, but Dad finally decided to spare me.  (Free golf labor was hard to find.)

Eventually BMG succeeded in getting Dad terminated, but not until after the New Year's Orgy, a common pseudo-CC money-saving custom in those days.  The moral of our story?  

The cart path only rule is a good thing--and water balloons filled with food dye are better than shotguns.  (That's another story.)  

*Note:  This story was recently declassified, primarily because I'm getting too old to worry about it anymore.