Talk about stuck on stupid.
According to news reports, the city of North Las Vegas isn’t exactly swimming in dough. So you’d think the government employees at the city’s public Par 3 golf course off Cheyenne would be happy for business…especially on a day and time where there’s absolutely no one waiting to tee off, right?
Wrong.
My three children – 7, 11 and 13 – wanted to play a round on Super Family Sunday Fun Day last weekend. We showed up at around 2:00 pm. The parking lot was all but empty. No one was in the clubhouse. No one on the first tee. Ghost town.
So I asked the cheerless curmudgeon behind the counter – Tony DiPietro – for greens fees for three kids. To which he responded, “OK, a foursome.” “No,” I said, “just the three kids. I’m not playing.” “Sorry, you have to pay a ‘walking’ fee anyway.”
Now, I’ve been down this road before. This rule that even people who aren’t playing have to pay a “walking” fee to discourage people from cheating and playing out of someone else’s bag isn’t new. And maybe, on some level, even makes sense.
But every other time I’ve been there, the guy behind the counter exercised a little common sense and realized it’s not exactly the same to charge a parent escorting his minor children around the golf course. Safety, and all that. But this old codger was having none of it.
“Rules are rules,” he declared.
So I not-so-respectfully told him where to stick his rules, and even might have called him a name that rhymes with “midiot.” Thus the city of financially-strapped North Las Vegas lost three greens fees on a day when the course was empty and won’t be seeing us back again in the future.
Heckuva a job, Tony!
