Tales from the Beverage Cart Girl

By: Jim Moore


If you ask me, there's nothing better than a beverage-cart girl. She's my golf goddess. When she drives toward me, I get this warm-and-fuzzy feeling. She's bringing a Bloody Mary or a beer and a smile to my face. I hold her in the highest regard because she's there to make me happy, and happy I am when I see her.

I can hear what you're saying - she's just being nice to get a bigger tip. Don't wreck the fantasy - she could be genuinely cool, the woman of my dreams, the one who will at the very least make the next four hours of my life pleasurable.

You want a good walk spoiled? How's this - a few years ago, I played with a guy in the Central Oregon Shootout who eagled a hole and proceeded to tell me on the next tee box that he had married a beverage-cart girl. So I'm standing there thinking, "This guy just eagled a hole I bogeyed, and on top of that, he married a beverage-cart girl!?!?" It didn't seem fair then, doesn't seem fair now.

A good walk spoiled, part II - any course that does not have a beverage-cart girl should be severely criticized and ridiculed if not fined. It's amazing to me that this still happens. You're walking along thinking, "Man, I could use a drink," only to find out that the course doesn't have a beverage-cart girl.

If I owned a course, I'd have two beverage-cart girls, one for the front nine, one for the back, because we all know she takes too long to get there sometimes. With two, we could be nonstop quenched.

With some reservations, I encouraged my daughter to become a beverage-cart girl at the Golf Club at Newcastle, a high-end course in Newcastle, Wash., about 10 miles east of Seattle. She lives five minutes from the course, and I recalled that a GM at Trophy Lake in Port Orchard, Wash., once told me that his beverage-cart girl made more money that he did during the summer.

My kid's going to Washington State in the fall, and her dad just lost his job at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and I figured what the heck, she might be able to fund her education by pouring drinks from a beverage cart. I know, Dr. Phil would have a field day with me.

I thought it was OK for 18-year-olds to pour and serve drinks in Washington, but it's not. So that option's out, but it might be just as well.

A few years ago at Newcastle, I heard that former Seattle Mariners second baseman Bret Boone was rude to a beverage-cart girl. As far as I'm concerned, there is no greater offense than being rude to a beverage-cart girl, so I pursued that story like the newshound I'm not.

Newcastle beverage-cart girl Astrid Johnson told me that Boone asked her to find some chewing tobacco. When she returned from the clubhouse, she told Boone that the golf shop didn't sell chewing tobacco. Boone proceeded to call her a (bleeper) for not coming through with his request.

Said Johnson: "Being called a (bleeper) by a major-league baseball player? I didn't do anything to warrant that. I wasn't extremely offended because I hear a lot of stuff. But if I had been anyone else, I would've cried."

Boone denied it, saying: "I've never, ever acted inappropriately at Newcastle. Everything's a (bleeping) lie."

So who do you believe? Why would Johnson tell a story like that if it wasn't the truth? Besides, she's a beverage-cart girl, deserving every benefit of the doubt.

Former Mariners first baseman Richie Sexson was with Boone at Newcastle at the time of the incident and told me if I went with the story, he would never talk to me again. For two years we didn't speak, and I'm sure it was heart-breaking for both of us.

Another unbelievable beverage-cart story happened several years ago at a course in Mesquite, Nev., where a man was either threatening to, or did file a discrimination lawsuit because he was not allowed to become a beverage-cart boy.

If I'm the judge, I would have thrown that sucker out of court so fast on the basis of this well-known fact - there's just no such thing as a beverage-cart boy. If I ever see one, I think I'll all of a sudden not be thirsty.

I've got such a fascination with beverage-cart girls that I held a contest once at the Post-Intelligencer, asking readers for their best beverage-cart girl stories. The column was never published because the winner's story was deemed too racy for the newspaper, but surely it's proper enough for cyberspace. Here goes:

"There were 16 golfers, and Shelly the cart girl (not her real name) took care of us. We were drinking beer and taking shots, to the point that she had to re-stock her cart.

"Once we were done golfing, she bought us appetizers and drinks on the patio. Then we went to a bachelor party at a buddy's house and waited for the stripper to arrive.

"We went out on the deck and, sure enough, standing there at the keg was Shelly the cart girl getting wasted. She wanted to go home to change, so my buddy gave her the keys to his brand-new truck. She returned with a friend.

"Shelly became part of the show, dancing with the stripper. It was insane. You go from having her serve you beer on a golf course to dancing at a bachelor party with a stripper. She spent the night and left with her friend the next morning. Since then, nobody has seen Shelly the cart girl."

If they ever start a beverage-cart girl Hall of Fame, Shelly's bound to make it on the first ballot.

The first runner-up's story was pretty good, too:

"A few years ago I was golfing at Brookdale in Tacoma with some friends. My friend, Bill, complained to the beverage-cart girl that the marshal was a jerk because he kept pushing and dogging us. The beverage-cart girl agreed with Bill, saying: 'I should know he's a jerk because I've been married to him for 32 years.' "

Jim Moore is now a freelance writer after a lengthy run as a sports columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which closed its doors in March 2009 after 145 years of publishing a newspaper. He's a 51-year-old 12-handicapper with a pair of 4-year-old sons who love golf, too. Jim believes that the most necessary element on all golf courses is the presence of a beverage-cart girl, preferably two, one for the front side and one for the back. Jim is a mental midget who got so sick of his left wrist breaking down on the greens that he now putts one-handed. Jim can be reached and harassed at jimmoorethego2guy@yahoo.com.