My father-in-law was a prince of a man and became my surrogate father in the late 70s due to my own father’s illnesses. He was Harold but I called him “H”. His sons and grandsons called him Big Bear. Several years after his 1994 death the guys in the extended family organized a long weekend at Lake Lure, NC for a weekend of golf and libations – 8 of us. We named it the BBC – The Big Bear Classic for H. In spring of 2015 we played the 10th BBC.
I could write 100 stories about happenings at the BBC but the Twitter police would ban 98 of them. 8 guys, 4 “A” players and 4 “B” players, if there really are 4 of us that are worth a darn. Nephew Jay plans the tournament with the previous year’s A/B team winner defending the title. The other As and Bs are rotated each year. The tourney is played on Friday and Saturday. Carts are crammed with coolers and the golf is ugly but as the Saturday round closes the competition gets fairly tense, believe it or not. And why not? The winners get the jackets!
We totally copied the Masters green jacket idea except these are not green and are admittedly horrible.
I thought we needed the prestige of the coats. The local Goodwill store obliged. One is a dark brown double breasted polyester beauty and the other is polyester lime green with light blue pinstripes. Jack, Arnie or Tiger would gladly trade a green coat for one of these!
In the 8th grade Mr. Bost taught me English script so each coat’s breast pocket is adorned with “BBC” in that regal font.
After the Saturday round the previous year’s winners present the jackets as if we were in Augusta National’s Butler Cabin. It’s hokey and the jackets are hideous but the winners beam with pride!
Fairway Follies, Joe Hinson 