My First Motorcycle Ride, On a Golf Course

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I was running a golf outing a few years back and trying to get the course set up with all the different contests - hole in one, closest to the pin, long drive, etc. Me and my staff were greeting the golfers as they arrived. Doing our best to keep the event host happy and quiet, typical Monday at a golf club.

Out of the blue, here comes this gruff looking gentleman riding a big, black Harley Davidson, parks the beast right in front of the bag drop, right in the middle of all the commotion.

Typically golf outings get car dealerships to donate a car towards a hole-in-one contest in exchange for advertising and good will. This outing had other plans, they were going with a motorcycle.

I walk over to the guy and tell him that I'll follow him out to the assigned hole and give him a ride back in my golf cart. He just shook his head and said:

That's as far as I'm taking her

With that said, he took his leave, got into his partners car and left. At this point I need the motorcycle moved out of the way and put on the golf course. The hole it needed to go to was about a mile from where we stood. I have no experience with bikes, I rode a little Honda 50 as a kid, but that's it.

I looked to my staff of 5 guys and said who knows how to operate this beast. They all stepped backwards in unison, something you generally only see in the movies. Oh shit. That means it's up to me then, right? Yup.

First things first, how do I start the engine, ok turn key, push button, voila! Life! I now know that first gear is one click down, but on that day we headed off in 2nd gear. I was lucky not to stall. Off I went, making sure to rev up the engine to look like I knew what I was doing and look super cool, not.

So I get this sucker going a pretty good clip, flying down the cart path, the 12th hole was pretty far away and we were running short of time.

Something I didn't realize was how high I was sitting on the motorcycle. Trees along cart paths have their branches pruned to accommodate the roof height of a golf cart. I'm cruising along, thinking about 3rd gear and here comes a head high branch, a literal decapitator. Oh Shit. I dropped my belly on the gas tank and ducked as low as I could go. Whoosh. I took a leaf to the head.

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Now I'm keenly aware that there are branches out there with my name on them, so we took it down a notch, no need for those other gears.

I got the motorcycle parked without event. That sucker was seriously heavy and I was deathly afraid of dropping it. I hopped in the chase cart and we sped back to the staging area at a solid 12mph, free from fear of death branches.

I popped back up to bag drop, grabbed the microphone, stated the days rules and off went the golfers. Phew. Right on time.

All in a days work for a club pro.

When I went to retrieve the Harley, one of the mechanics had told me about first gear. lol

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