My only food poisoning experience happened back when I played college golf. There’s a course in Billings Montana that I definitely left a mark on twenty two years ago. I wrote about it a long time ago when I had actual aspirations of being a writer. Here’s an excerpt.

“My coach must have had a losing night playing cards with the other coaches the night before, because suddenly there were all five of us guys crammed into one room and the nice restaurant he’d promised our post-practice round meal at had been downgraded to a Golden Corral. I fell asleep not feeling right at all. Must have been something I ate.

The tournament started the next day, I warmed up great and managed solid pars on the first two holes when it hit. It felt like I was being repeatedly kicked in the gut. I barely made it to the bushes when the vomit started to flow. Yup, it was food poisoning. I was on hole-three of thirty-six for the day and I could barely stand. This wasn’t going to be a good day at all. Pretty much every other hole we played, I would honk in the weeds. We finished the first 18 and as we were checking our cards I was shocked to see I had managed a 73. I signed my card and handed it to Montana-Western’s coach who handed me a bag lunch in exchange. The second that turkey-on-a-roll hit my gut it was on its way back up again. We still had 18 holes to play, and I had no way to refuel. “You okay man?” Western’s coach asked as I shook my head.

“How’s my score matched up with my teammates so far?” I asked.

“Yours is the second lowest round carded on your team,” he replied. “One of your guys got D-Q’d though. Are you sure you’re going to make it?”

“Got no choice now, if we don’t post a tournament score, we can’t go to the Regional. Going to have to gut this one out.” I wish I had felt as confident as I wanted to sound.

Round-two wasn’t much better than round one. Although about six holes in, I was able to keep a little Dixie cup of water down. My drives were getting weaker, my vision was blurry. I felt like I was turning into a 90 year old man. Montana-Western’s coach rolled up again about eleven holes in to the round and stuck a bottle of Gatorade from his team’s own stash into my bag. “Just try it, see if you can keep it down. Some of the other coaches and I are taking bets on if you’re going to finish.”

“How are my odds?” I asked weakly.

“Well, I’m pretty much the only one banking on ya.”

“What does my coach think?”

“Don’t know. Nobody’s seen him since the first round.” He replied.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen hide or hair of my own coach since the driving range that morning. Glad to see he cared. Maybe I should have played for Montana-Western. “I’m so taking this program over after I graduate!” I thought as I took down a baby-swallow of Gatorade.

We finally hit the eighteenth hole of the round and thirty-sixth hole of the day. And I had to take a knee to tee the ball up. At that point I felt so weak; I could barely hit the ball across the street. I popped the ball out into the fairway. Thankfully it was a short hole and I only had about 140 yards in. By then a small crowd of about thirty already finished players was surrounding the green. I embarrassingly grabbed a 6-iron out of the bag. Ordinarily that was way too much club for this shot, but in my condition, this was barely going to get there. I swung the club back and threw my hands at the ball. Thinned the piss out of it. That ball barely got three feet off of the ground and landed about twenty yards off the green. Surprisingly, it bounced forward, nearly rolling off the back of the green and left me with about a 45 foot putt back to the front-left hole location. Two putts to go and I can finally lie down. The other two guys in my group, Chad from Rocky Mountain and Colt from Carroll had both knocked wedges to inside four feet. I could barely see the damn hole from that far away. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Golf Girl in the crowd. I was suddenly overcome by a familiar feeling of calm. Good lord she was beautiful. “Man up dude! Just get it close.” I thought as I jabbed at the ball. “Aw hell!” I hollered, as I saw the ball burn a trail to the hole, “that better hit it, or it’s off the fuckin’ green!” Maybe it heard me, because next thing I knew my ball slammed into the back edge of the cup, hopped in the air a little bit and then settled at the bottom of the hole as a collective shriek went up in the crowd, which to my blurry eyes and ringing ears, looked and sounded like Sunday at Augusta. I staggered forward to snag my ball out of the hole, but Chad from Rocky already had it.

“You are the toughest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever met.” He said as he handed me my ball.

We sat down at the scorer’s table to sign our cards, when I finally realized after adding up the numbers I had shot a 1-under par 70. My pen had barely finished autographing the scorecard when I blacked out.”

Epilogue: I did take over that team as coach eight years later. Also, I try not to even drive past a Golden Corral anymore.