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Check out our revolutionary new rainproof and sweat-proof golf scorecards
Hacker (real name) was questionable for our Friday-morning game, because he'd broken the middle finger on his left hand while using his wood-splitter:
Also, it was raining. But he played anyway, and so did Barney, Tim, and I. We had the course to ourselves:
Hacker discovered that his finger didn't hurt nearly as much if he used a baseball grip. Here's a perfectly square divot he took on the fourth hole (that's his tee in the middle of it):
The rain wasn't a problem, because we were using one of our new waterproof scorecards. (You can watch a video demonstration at the bottom of this post.) Our waterproof cards look exactly like our regular scorecards, but they don't get soggy or fall apart, and you can write on them when they're soaking wet, using a regular pencil -- and then you can erase what you've written, using the same pencil. In fact, the wetter they are the better they work. Here's the card we used on Friday, strapped to my pushcart:
Our field test went great, and I double-checked the result by driving home with the card stuck to my windshield:
Our waterproof scorecards were printed for us by PrintWorks, the official stationers of the Sunday Morning Group. We didn't actually invent them; we stole the idea from Todd Petrey, a caddie at Bandon Dunes. Petrey graduated from the University of Florida 1992 with a degree in sports therapy, and tried to play golf professionally for a while. He began caddying when he was short of cash, and one of the places he worked was East Lake, in Atlanta, where the weather is so disgustingly hot and humid that scorecards sometimes dissolve in perspiration. To deal with that problem, and also with rain, he invented Drycards. ("Like a normal scorecard, only better because you can use it as a coaster.") Petrey also invented Signsocks, temporary road-sign covers used in highway construction projects.
Ray, Tony, and I first saw Drycards while playing 10 rounds in the rain at Bandon in 2007. Last year, I tried to get in touch with Petrey, to order a batch for S.M.G., but as near as I can tell he's no longer in business. (He doesn't seem to be selling Signsocks anymore, either.) So I took an old Bandon Drycard down to my basement and reverse-engineered it -- which is to say, I ordered a supply of synthetic paper (the secret ingredient) from Amazon, and Hacker and I took it to PrintWorks. Here's how it works: