Golfing Central Florida's
The Club at Eaglebrooke

A Professional's Courtesy
Part 1

by Anthony Scaggs

We met in Florida for the warm sunshine and to play golf.

We arrived at "The Club at Eaglebrooke".

Not feeling well, one of our foursome asked for a separate cart intending to leave if she became ill. Her thought was not to disrupt the group if illness struck. She did not want to depend on finding a marshall or have one of us return her to the clubhouse. Our desire for a three-cart foursome was explained to the cart attendant and the starter. Our partner stated,

"I did not want to fly from Canada to sit in a Florida hotel room."

We warmed up and headed for the first tee.

Two of us had teed off and were walking back to the cart when Eaglebrooke's Head Professional drove down the cart path with clubs banging and slammed on the brakes. He wanted to know why we had three golf carts. We started to explain, but he interrupted

"This is my course and I make the rules. You do it my way ..."

I was a guest and decided to hold my tongue. I removed the clubs from the third cart and loaded them onto another cart. We drove to our second shot, not a word was said. The joy and excitement of the morning was gone.

Our host was embarrassed. By the time that we reached the third tee in silence, we decided that something had to be said. We were all professionals. We had played at numerous courses and tournaments. We would not let one individual ruin our golf experience and we did not want our host to feel any worse. One person quietly said to me,

"That would never happen at Hilton Head."

We finished our round, enjoying the day, our camaraderie and the warm sunny weather. Once we finished, we could not leave "the club of eaglebrooke" fast enough.