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Dude, Where’s My Driver? – Part Two

Published

19 years ago

Oct 16, 2007

Twelve weeks after I paid for a new driver and with my contact having disappeared off the face of the earth, I had had enough of waiting for him to call and tell me what the hell was going on. I was going to do some calling of my own. The options I had to chase him down boiled down to phoning the club he said that he belonged to, calling the police and getting them involved or phoning everybody in the phone book with his surname.

Phoning someone’s club is different from phoning a persons employer. Personal phone calls at work may be frowned on but they are not a source of embarrassment. If you are there 9-5 (at least!), 5 days a week, sometimes the only place to catch you is at work. Phone calls to someone’s golf club could be hugely embarrassing especially if they want to know the reason why you are trying to get in contact with their member. If there were a reasonable explanation for what was happening– no matter how less and less likely this was becoming – I did not want to be the cause of someone’s reputation being tarnished unfairly.

I wanted to keep phoning the cops as my last resort and anyway I figured that the phone book would be the easiest option, especially as I could use a website that gave the address and telephone number together, That way I could use Google maps to restrict the list of people who I would phone but starting with those that lived closed to the golf courses he mentioned. Typing in his name and town gave me 60 hits. Not a huge amount of people but I didn’t relish wasting that many peoples’ time hunting this guy down. Matching the most likely location for each brought it down to the slightly little more manageable number of 14.

I felt like a bad private eye in a cheap novel – obviously minus the trilby and trench coat and equally unfortunately without the busty blonde out front in reception, but with a steely eyed determination that this guy was not going to elude my grasp. So I sat down with the list and started phoning.

<ring, ring>

‘Hello can I speak to Victor*.’

‘I’m sorry no one of that name lives here.’

…

<ring, ring>

‘Hello can I speak to Victor.”

‘Sorry mate you must have the wrong number.’

…

And so on. My hopes were starting to fade as the call after call went to the wrong house. Again, and again…..and again.

And then it happened…lucky number 13.

<ring, ring>

‘Hello can I speak to Victor.’

‘Oh I’m sorry he’s not in,’ the lady replied ‘can I ask who’s calling?’

Great, this tells me I’ve found someone with the same name. While it might not definitely be him, his unusual surname made it pretty likely.

‘It’s Martin from the golf club” – not strictly a lie as I didn’t say which golf club – ‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

‘Well he’s at football training so he won’t be back ‘til late.’

That sealed it. In one of our conversations he had said that he played football on a Thursday (a fact which I had completely forgotten) so this was his home number. Sounding as breezy as I could, I told her thanks and not to worry and that I would catch him some other time. If he’s out at football training then he can’t have fallen under a train or been in a horrendous accident and been unable to call me from his hospital bed.

So a couple of days later, I rang the number again.

<ring, ring>

‘Hello?’ This time a guy answered and I recognised the voice, it was Victor. Sam Spade eat your heart out!

‘Victor, it’s Martin from Golfwrx. How are you?’

There was a short pause. “I’m fine thanks”. His voice shook a little. He certainly wasn’t expecting me to call especially as he had never given me his home number. ‘Um…how did you get my number?’

‘There are 14 people with your surname in your area, and 12 of them are pissed at me for phoning them up trying to find you.’

‘Why? Did you not get the driver?’

Now this just pissed me off. I had paid him nearly 200 pounds for a club nearly 3 months ago and not received it. It had been a farce from the start and here he was, claiming innocence and wondering why I had phoned him up. If I was in his position, where there had been problems from the start I would have made sure to call and check, just as a matter of course.

It was kind of fun listening to him desperately flapping around when I asked him for a shipping number… at least for the first 5 minutes. After that I got bored. I decided to be nice and told him that he could email it to me tomorrow morning, making it pretty obvious that I was seriously annoyed and if he didn’t there would be ‘repercussions’ – I had no idea what this would be but more importantly, neither did he. Remember, I had his telephone number and also knew where he lived now. That he couldn’t find the shipping number didn’t surprise me in the slightest. On past performance he would be hard pressed to find his arse with both hands, a map, a bright torch and a tour guide.

The next day I spend most of the morning waiting for the email wondering if this time he would actually do what he said he would. His email eventually dropped into my inbox at about 5 minutes to midday. The problem was simple he cried! His mate at the shop had the wrong address for me all along, so if I send him my address again, it could all be sorted out!

Great! It was all just some cosmic misunderstanding due to the misalignment of Jupiter’s moons or some such rubbish but seriously, how could this happen? I’d texted and emailed my address numerous times and if his friend had the wrong address surely the club would have come back undelivered which would raise questions. You’d have to be some sort of moron to screw that up and not think ‘Maybe I should check this out?’. At that point I realised that I was dealing with someone who probably wore his underpants on his head and I wearily resent my address.

But if his friend at the shop was going to be sending the club, why hadn’t he told me this when he was scrabbling around for the shipping number? Surely he would have just told me then? Again, for the sake of the club, I was going to play along with what sounded like a bit of a fib and wait the 5 days that I had been told it would take. How much longer would 5 days seem after all this time?

A surprisingly long time as, of course, it didn’t turn up yet again. So I emailed him, yet again, to find out if I had anything more than a snowballs chance in hell of this thing actually turning up.

If there’s one thing you don’t joke about, it’s serious health problems. So when he told me that his old man had had a heart attack and that he was going away to see him for the next 10 days, I didn’t think that there was anything that I could say or do. At this point, I really didn’t believe him as I felt I had been lied to (or at least deliberately misled) so may times that I had no trust in him whatsoever but then again, it was only a golf club. Just some titanium and carbon and not that big a deal in the great scheme of things, especially compared to a serious illness.

‘No probs’, I said. ‘Just let me know when you get back and we can pick this up then.’ I’m a softy when it comes to people being ill – a side-effect of working in a hospital for a large part of my twenties – but while I would treat this guy as if he was my best buddy until he knew that his Dad was going to be alright, I wasn’t going to go away.

So a couple more weeks pass and he emails me saying that his dad was fine and that he had an update from the shop. Apparently his friend had left the shop and the staff who now worked there had no idea where the club was and in fact thought that they had sold it. The irony when he described these guys as ‘muppets’ was almost too much, considering that his actions over the past 3 months made Bonzo the clown look like a hard working, dynamic, goal-orientated executive primed for the cut and thrust of the business world.

After much honking of his red nose and putting custard pies down his trousers, he finally decided that he too had had enough of the situation (and my phone calls and emails) and that it might be best for him to return my money.

About 10 days later, the money appeared in my account. Maybe it was guilt or just the interest earned in the prolonged period that my money had been in his account but the amount was slightly more than I had given him at the start. That the money was eventually returned to me on the first day of the month and was paid in as cash raised a few more questions about whether or not he had the money all the while he was promising to give it to me or had to wait for pay day but after all that had gone before, I just couldn’t find it in me to care. I had my money back.

Did I have any confidence that the money would be there if I hadn’t chased and harried him – no, not really. While,if you choose to believe him, he appeared to have gone through a tough time while this farce was going on with a serious illness in the family and a change of job. I can’t imagine any situation where I would be happy to take hundreds of pounds from someone and at least keep them updated. How much effort does it take to make a phone call or write an email? Especially when you know that the other person has no way of getting in contact with you, and you have enough time on your hands to go football training! The discrepancy on the shipping where he said that he had a shipping number, then said that his friend had sent it, then said that he had the wrong address, then that he hadn’t sent it and then no longer could all pointed towards a man who while probably wasn’t actively criminal certainly didn’t appear to be a bit of a dreamer/half-wit who wasn’t too bothered about keeping my money if I never managed to get hold of him again

So what did I learn from this? Dealing with private parties on the internet is always going to be fraught compared to dealing with companies but it shouldn’t be too problematic if you stick to a couple of rules: ‘only pay for things that actually exist’ and ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’. I will keep buying on the web, but in future I will be a lot more upfront and a lot more demanding about how I expect a transaction to be handled.

*Names have been changed to protect the (maybe, just maybe) innocent.

News

5 Things we Learned: Friday at the U.S. Women’s Open

Published

1 hour ago

Jun 6, 2026

Ronald Montesano

Dumbo flies again! There is certainly a half-generation of golf fans without the slightest idea of how well In-gee Chun, aka Dumbo, can golf her ball. The Korean was the It Girl from 2015 to 2018. She won three LPGA events, with two being major championships. She returned to Korea to cure her homesickness, but made the occasional foray back to the Americas. In 2022, she captured a fourth LPGA title and, guess what? It was a third, unique major title.

The halfway cut line was set at four over par. Those at plus-five and beyond had their stay in Tinseltown cut short, at least when it comes to working rounds of golf. Among the 87 who fell on the high side of the cut line, Lydia Ko stood out as the biggest name. Others given a two-day furlough were Lilia Vu, Megha Ganne, Chizzy Iwai, and Leona Maguire. Making the cut on the number are Lottie Woad, Celine Boutier, Mao Saigo, and amateur Asterisk Talley. If you follow world football, imagine the feeling of relegation on a weekly basis. That’s the 36-hole cut in professional golf.

We learned five things on Friday at Riviera Country Club, and we’d love to share them with you. Find a comfy place and brighten the screen on your device. It’s time for Five Things We Learned on day two at the US Women’s Open.

Part One: the biggest movers

A golfer’s feel appears or slips away overnight. Although Saturday is known collectively as Moving Day, it doesn’t come with as sudden and final a feeling as Friday. Move the wrong way on Friday and you’re down the road. Improve in the proper direction and you save your week. Both Mao Saigo and Rio Takeda opened with plus-five rounds of 76, then signed for 70 on day two, and made the cut on the number.

Moving the other way were Stephanie Kyriacou (70-78) and Ina Yoon (68-79). Their respective eight- and eleven-shot declines propelled them from title contention to tournament departure. Minjee Lee and Minji Kang (seven shots higher) along with Rose Zhang (five shots) made the cut, but saw their opportunity for victory take a serious body shot.

Part Two: the leaders

Allison Lee and Ruoning Yin took the conservative path to the 36-hole medal. Lee posted four birdies and a bogey for a total of 68 on day two. Yin had two birdies and sixteen pars for her second consecutive card of 69. Their 138 places them one shot clear of the aforementioned Dumbo Chun, who followed an opening 71 with 68. First-round leader Jennifer Kupcho added seven shots to her total, from an opening-day 66 to a follow-up 73, yet remained within the inner circle of leaders at -3, tied with Chun and four others. Four more golfers sit at minus-two, two shots behind the top duo. An even dozen of golfers sits within two shots of the lead.

The day’s biggest move of gravitas came from Nelly Korda. After a disappointing 73 on Thursday, the world number one improved six shots, thanks to a five-birdie round of 67. Korda slid inside the top ten with her recovery, and certainly reclaimed her place as most frightening chaser at Riviera. No one is likely to shoot in the low 60s at Riviera, but Korda just might post a mid-sixties score on Saturday, to seize the lead on Sunday morning.

Part Three: Ams verse Champs

Five current amateur golfers were among the 68 golfers to reach the weekend. Kiara Romero posted the best non-pro score on Friday, a one-under 70, to move from plus-two to plus-one figures. She is joined there by Aphrodite Deng, who reversed those numbers for her two rounds. Maria Jose Marin (143), Farah O’Keefe (145), and Asteriks Talley (146) joined the #WeDidIt brigade to earn a spot for the final two rounds.

Six former US Open champions, led by In-gee Chun(2015), also punched a ticket for round three. Allison Corpuz (2023), Maja Stark (2025), Ariya Jutanugarn (2018), A Lim Kim (2020), and Minjee Lee (2022) preserved their dream of a second US Open trophy for the mantle. Nineteen amateurs failed to earn a post for the final 36-holes, while five former champions joined them on the sidelines. Yuka Saso, twice a winner in this event in the past half-decade, missed the cut by five shots. 24 amateurs against eleven former titleists suggests that it is easier for the young to qualify, but harder for them to find success.

Part Four: the golf course

Scoring went up by .6 shots per player, from round one to round two. Statistically speaking, it became harder to make the cut as the day wore on. Birdies dropped by 50, while pars remained constant. Both bogeys and doubles increased markedly. The first and the sixth holes played under par on the front nine, while the second and ninth were nearly tied for most difficult traces on the road to the turn.

Coming home, holes ten, twelve, fifteen, and eighteen played as an impregnable quadrilateral. Odds are, you gave a shot back on each of them. Despite number seventeen’s accessibility for birdie, no one got out of the back nine alive. If conditions continue toward the extreme, Riviera will extract a pound of flesh from the contenders over the weekend.

Part Five: what to expect

From my vantage point, the tee times to watch are the 4:55 EST and the 5:05 slots. Nelly Korda pegs her ball in the sixth-last pairing with Sora Kamiya. The little-known Kamiya will get an up close and personal look at the crowds that follow the best in the world. Korda will need to ignore Kamiya’s expected struggles and golf her own ball. Ten minutes later, Lauren Coughlin begins play with Casandra Alexander at her side. It’s a similar situation, with the experienced Coughlin alongside an unseasoned partner.

Both Sei Yong Kim and Gaby Lopez have turned in strong performances, and their 5:15 pairing might produce some explosive numbers. From back in the pack, the tasty duo of Brooke Henderson and Jeeno Thitikul at 4:20, might see double digits in birdies. The unexpected at unknown Riviera is likely, so your guess is as good as mine.

News

5 Things we Learned: Thursday at the U.S.. Women’s Open

Published

1 day ago

Jun 5, 2026

Ronald Montesano

Gone are the days when the U.S. Women’s Open was held at Scenic Hills or Churchill Valley. Fine courses that they are (or were, as Churchill Valley went bankrupt a decade ago) there is something to be said for the venue. Not all Women’s Open playings need to take place on Men’s Open venues, but some should. This week in Los Angeles, the Women’s Open visits Riviera Country Club for the first time. Down the road, we will visit Inverness, Oakmont, Interlachen, Oak Hill, Chicago Golf, and Merion. That is quite the murderer’s row (1927 Yankees reference) of golf clubs.

What can we expect from the 2026 tournament? Greatness and uncertainty. Unlike the PGA Tour, which visits Riviera each February, the LPGA does not, so the women will not have nearly the body of work over the George C. Thomas layout. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe they’ll play #10 smarter than the men do. Maybe they’ll figure some things out that their male counterparts can not. For today, we’ll try to find five things to learn, and share them with you.

First, this ain’t your momma’s U.S. Open course

How do we know? Well, so far, only one previous champion currently sits inside the top thirty. That would be Minjee Lee, the 2022 winner at Southern (NC) Pines. Lee made par on her first nine holes, the inward side at Riviera. She dropped birdie putts on the first and ninth holes (ten and eighteen for her day) and tallied another seven pars, for 69. She sits three shots off Jennifer Kupcho’s opening 66. Don’t worry about Kupcho; we’ll get to her. After Lee, defending champion Maja Stark ranks T30 at even par, joined by three other, former winners.

What Minjee did, is the sort of thing that wins U.S. Open titles. She guided her ship safely past swells, and made a move when the waters calmed. The fewer the bogeys, the more likely Minjee figures in the outcome on Sunday evening in Pacific Palisades. Off the tee, Lee was unmatched. She hit 14 of 14 fairways. Her iron play was a bit loose in comparison. She putted for birdie on 12 of 18 holes, which meant that her recovery short game was on point. Lee was ten yards longer on measured driving holes than the field average, and was below the field average (a good thing) in putting.

Second, the amateurs beat a loud drum

Three of the world’s top amateur golfer posted 70, placing them four off the lead, in a tie for 14th place. Canada’s Aphrodite Deng, Spain’s Paula Francisco Llaño, and Colombia’s Maria José Marin, showed the professional world that their game is strong. Both Deng and Francisco Llaño collected five birdies on the day. Should they match that output on day two, and minimize the foozles, they’ll be the topic of conversation on Saturday morning. Marin, the 2026 Augusta National Women’s Amateur champion and an NCAA team semifinalist last week, played a game similar to Minjee Lee: few mistakes and few taken risks.

The last amateur to post the low medal score for 72 holes was Jenny Chuasiriporn in 1998. She lost a playoff to Se Ri Pak, who matched her plus-six effort at Blackwolf Run. The last amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open was Catherine Lacoste in 1967. The amateurs are stronger than they’ve ever been, but the professionals have not allowed them to close the gap. A victory by one of the college set would be a cannon shot heard round the world. Could it happen? Absolutely. Is it likely? Not at all.

Third, let’s talk Kupcho

Jennifer Kupcho won the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur. She won three times on tour in 2022, including the Chevron, a major title. She won a fourth event in 2025, but has not established the winning credentials projected on her after 2022’s marvelous coming-out.

Kupcho hails from Colorado, and spent four years in the Carolina Piedmont, at Wake Forest Universtiy. Neither of those locales cries out I’ll be at home at Riviera, but here we are, after a seven-birdie performance. Kupcho posted birdie on each of her first three holes, and added four more (against two bogeys) to assume a one-shot advantage over Korea’s Sei Young Kim.

Kupcho drove the ball decently, approached moderately well, but putted lights out on Thursday. Her 26 putts were tied for best in show on day one. There might just be something about the putting surfaces at Riviera that aligns with Kupcho’s vibe. If that is the case, just get the ball on the green, anywhere, and let the flatstick do the lifting.

Fourth, how young is Sei Young?

Sei (pronounced “So”) Young Kim won a dozen times from 2015 to 2020. She took time off from winning until 2025, shen she captured a thirteenth LPGA title. Like Kupcho, Kim has hardware from one major event, the 2020 Women’s PGA Championship. How to explain the five years away from victory? No idea. When Sei Young was in contention during the prime of her career, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

What to expect over the next three days at Riviera? Anyone’s guess. It might be the 2015-2020 Sei Young, or it could be the 2021-2025 version. Kim began her day with birdies at 10 and 11, then settled into a stretch of pars before her solitary bogey at the 4th (her 13th) hole. Kim regained her composure and reeled in three birdies to close the front nine. Her four-under performance trails Kupcho alone, and there is a real chance that Sei Young will produce a second score in the 60s and take a bit of control of the tournament.

Fifth, we’re giddy for Gaby

Although I cannot place my finger on why, it seems that each year, Gaby Lopez pops up on the U.S. Open leaderboard. She hasn’t figure out how to remain in contention, but here we are, in 2026, and Lopez is once again in the mix. The three-time champion on the LPGA circuit had a stunning first nine holes, turning in minus-five. She reached six deep at her tenth hole, but then gave three shots back coming home. Which Gaby will show up on Friday, and for how long? If back-nine Gaby can somehow channel front-nine Gaby, all outcomes are within reach. If the loose play continues, Lopez’ wiki page will add one more T41 to her majors column.

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Photos from the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open

Published

3 days ago

Jun 3, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

GolfWRX Tour Photographer made the trip from the Memorial Tournament across the country to the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera. Check out links to all the photos below!

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