Okay, so now you know where to find relatively cheap golf. But do you know how to get high . . . er, alternatively medicate yourself while on a course? You probably think you do: Just roll a couple of big fatties, grab a Bic and light up on the course when no one’s watching, right?
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sure the etiquette of smoking pot on a golf course isn’t nearly as codified as the etiquette rules that form the behavior infrastructure of this tradition-laden sport. But whereas every golfer knows—or should know—that you don’t talk during someone’s backswing, always rake your bunkers and turn off your fucking cell phone, very few stoners know the etiquette of getting baked on the course.
But now you will:
1) Check the wind. If you’re in a cart and thinking of toking up, make sure you know which way the wind’s blowing. You don’t want your aromatic fumes to wind up in the nostrils of someone on an adjoining fairway.
2) When in a cart, always stay behind your playing partners—especially if you don’t know them well. Nothing screams, “I AM SMOKING MARIJUANA” more than ducking and surreptitiously taking a hit only to blow it out and have your previously unaware golfing partners drive through your sativa-laden cloud.
3) Invest in a smokeless pipe. Regardless of how isolated you think you are on a course, you’re not going to have time to take more than a couple of smallish hits. No matter how big of a fiend you truly are.
4) Bring an appropriate light source, like a flameless lighter. Wind doesn’t just fuck up a tee shot.
5) Don’t get high before your round. Show up to the first tee rubber-legged and goofy, and you’re bound to have a terrible game. Wait until you’re about three or four holes in, when you’ve found some kind of rhythm. Then you can treat yourself. Just about the time your blood sugar level has reached munchie status, you’ve got a snack barn coming up.
6) Find a golf course where the holes wind through the property. Avoid tightly laid-out municipal courses, where there are adjoining fairways.
7) If you’re going to party, don’t play for money.
8) Make sure you have bottled water or some kind of liquid sustenance for that pesky dry mouth.
9) Keep an eye out for the marshal! Don’t you know smoking pot in public is illegal?
This article appeared in print as “Strokes and Tokes.”
