FLASHBACK: The Cart Attack

Posted by Bill Hennessy

September 9, 2001

Sean and I had just teed off from the first hole at New Melle Country Club for the second time that day. We had already played 18 holes but decided to play the front nine for a second time. The first tee at New Melle sits high on a hill overlooking rocky cliffs and short patches of fairway. About 260 yards from the tee is a cliff that rises about 20 feet to a small approach area to the green. Between the tee box hill and the distant cliff are little pieces of fairway into which a golfer was expected to hit the ball. Great, powerful drivers may drive the ball over the cliff and into the approach area, leaving a short wedge shot to the green. Shorter drivers like me hit the ball onto the fairway in the deep valley, and then hit a seven iron onto the second cliff.

After teeing off, the golfers drive their carts down the hill, over a creek, and along side the lower fairway. The hill from the tee box to the creek is long, narrow, and very steep, descending about sixty feet in one hundred or so horizontal yards. Most golf carts are geared to limit their maximum speed on such hills. Most, but not all.

I teed off last in our group of three. Brad was first, followed by Sean, then me. All three of our shots landed in the lower fairway this time. On our first time around, Sean reached the approach area beyond the cliff. After I teed off, Brad got into his cart and started down the hill. I drove the second cart with Sean in the passenger’s seat some 60 feet behind Brad.

As we had been down the hill earlier in the day, I knew that the cart had no speed governor and could reach very high speeds going down the slope to the landing zone. I let it roll full speed yelling like PeeWee Herman, my right hand on the steering wheel, my left hand opening yet another can of beer. Sean laughed, but he looked worried. When we were two-thirds of the way down the hill, Brad, having reached the bridge over the creek, inexplicably stopped dead. My cart was flying right at his cart so fast that the tires were bouncing rhythmically off the path. I yelled “Don’t stop,” but he couldn’t understand me over the clamor of our jangling clubs. Instead of driving on, Brad turned all the way around in his seat and stared at us.

I slammed on the brakes, but the cart began to shudder. The sound of tires squealing lent a frightening counterpoint to the steady whoosh of the air passing the cart that was careening sickeningly to the right while heading dangerously to the left of the rapidly approaching bridge. I whipped the steering wheel hard to the right. The cart teetered on two wheels for a second, but then the tires began to slip and squeal. The cart jerked 90 degrees to the right, now heading for the creek on the right of the bridge. Again the shuddering started–this time more violent than before. I bounced into the air and out of the cart, my hands still on the wheel, my body stretched out perpendicular to the cart like Wile E. Coyote trying to control his Acme Rocket Sled around the corner of a dessert mesa.

The weight of my body pulled the steering wheel hard to the left, continuing the horror trip that seemed destined to end in the creek, in a monstrous collision with Brad’s cart, or rolling fatally over again and again, two broken and mangled bodies smoldering over twisted pieces of shattered fiberglass and torn metal. To make matters worse, I could no longer reach the brakes and my knees were bouncing and scraping the hot asphalt of the cart path. My partner, Sean, was speechless, waiting, no doubt, for the bright light at the and of the tunnel beckoning him to eternal bliss as the cart yelped and shook toward the small, steep gap between the trees and the corner of the bridge.

I let go. Miraculously, as my body skidded along the asphalt, pieces of flesh and hair tearing painfully from my arms and legs, I saw Sean reach calmly across the cart and, with one deft turn of the wheel, bring the deathtrap to a steady, safe stop in the middle of the bridge.

I never blacked out, exactly, but awareness of my surroundings returned in fits and starts over, what seemed like an hour, but must have been only a few seconds. I remember seeing Sean in the cart, his body now twisted 180 degrees, looking wild-eyed at me, concerned I might have died, I suppose. I saw Brad in the cart up ahead fighting back a hard laugh. But most clearly I remember the echoing sounds of laughter coming down the hill from the tee box. I looked back up the hill and saw two golfers in various fits of hysterics, having witnessed our descent into the Maelstrom of the first hole. One of them was literally bent over the cart, slapping the seatback like an exaggerated Jerry Lewis character. His partner, seeing I was at least moving, began clapping and whistling. Three holes later, as we waited for a foursome to clear a fairway, this pair caught up to us and offered to pay our greens fees if we’d come back the following Sunday to recreate the stunt for their friends. What compassion these guys had.

The entire right side of my body seared with burns, scrapes, jammed joints and bruises. A huge welt rose on the back of my head. My hands shook violently with fear and pain. But I pressed on, completing the front nine for the second time.

After our 27 holes of golf, with my right forearm and thigh bloody red messes and the joints of my right hand stiff and swelling, Sean and I sat in the Nineteenth Hole sipping gin and tonics, staring leaden-eyed at the television, reliving, in silence, our shared golfing nightmare.