{"id":268,"date":"2010-07-29T10:54:57","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T15:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnstrawn.com\/?p=268"},"modified":"2010-08-06T16:58:37","modified_gmt":"2010-08-06T21:58:37","slug":"america-s-happiest-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/golf\/personalities\/268\/america-s-happiest-man","title":{"rendered":"America’s Happiest Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My brother-in-law, Lee, and I have a lot in common, in addition to having married twin sisters (one each) and being next door neighbors.\u00a0 \u00a0We both like to cycle (although he knows what he\u2019s doing and can analyze the strategy of the peloton vs. the breakaways in the Tour de France, while I just pedal and pant), we\u2019re pretty handy and enjoy building things, and we both love to play golf.\u00a0 We\u2019re pretty competitive, too, but unfortunately we also share a tendency to succumb to the occasional soul-sapping shank.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yesterday I beat him out of six bucks.\u00a0 We always play a three dollar Nassau, and he was putting just awful, which is rare for him.\u00a0 He grips his vintage Bull\u2019s-eye putter with his index finger down the shaft, legs spread wide like he\u2019s expecting the deck he\u2019s standing on to surge, and makes everything.\u00a0 But yesterday he couldn\u2019t drop a marble in a rain barrel, and until I started spraying drives on the last few holes and let him get a half on the back, I was crushing his spirit and mocking his aspirations.\u00a0 He always pays promptly (and expects immediate payment, too.)\u00a0 So why did he have such a big grin on his face when I saw him later?<\/p>\n

About 5:30 last night Lee\u2019s phone rang.\u00a0 It was his son-in-law, David, calling.\u00a0 Could Lee jump on a plane in the morning and fly out to Pittsburgh?\u00a0 To play in the member guest?\u00a0 At OAKMONT?\u00a0 He ran it by command central and got approval from the Chief, so this morning at dawn I heard the cab pull up and Lee walking down the stairs with his golf clubs and his suitcase, heading east.\u00a0 The force field of joy emanating with every step washed across the lawn, and America\u2019s happiest man headed off to the friendly skies.<\/p>\n

To find out how Lee did, see http:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/golf\/golf\/personalities\/290\/happiest-man-returns-to-earth<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My brother-in-law, Lee, and I have a lot in common, in addition to having married twin sisters (one each) and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18,17,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-lifestyle","category-courses-and-travel","category-personalities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2010\/07\/medium.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/johnstrawn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}