Seeing Double

Twins run in my family. My father was a twin, I have twin cousins back in New York who own a bagel shop, and, most recently, I have been accused of having a twin brother.

Allow me to explain. Recently I attended a Captain's Choice charity golf tournament at a local course. Joining a foursome of co-workers for a morning of networking, golf and selected beverages, my normally anxious demeanor was soothed by the sight of lush green fairways and pine trees swayed by a light summer breeze. No work, no phone, and no sign of rain in sight, what could be better?

Our team stumbled through the first few holes (my ball made more right turns than Rush Limbaugh cruising the Daytona Speedway in reverse), yet we managed to remain slightly under par. As is the custom for events of this kind, participating business sponsors were positioned at each hole, greeting each group of linksters with an assortment of marketing paraphernalia and trinkets. Play is usually slow during these affairs, therefore allowing the players the time to chat with their tee-box host. Our team took full advantage of our new friend's hospitality and ravaged each booth for tsotchkies like a horde of crazed gypsies. By the time we completed the final hole, our golf bags were full of junk and our score fell somewhere between first and last place.

Tired, yet relaxed I headed for my car smiling at the prospect of driving a vehicle with air conditioning. On my way to the parking lot I was stopped by my friend Ron who asked me if I would like to play with his group in the afternoon flight. Ron wasn't looking for a ringer to tip the tourney scales in his favor and hadn't found one in me. My golf game is less stable than a South American government. I once shot seventy-seven and ninety-nine on the same course during the same week. Ron was looking for a warm body.

Quickly, I returned to my trunk, grabbed a spare shirt, changed, and off I went for another eighteen holes.

Waiting at the first tee-box were the same eager business-types that I had visited and chatted with during the morning round. I was pocketing another souvenir from my booth visit when I was approached by the tent attendant who asked if I had played earlier that morning. Before I could answer Ron stepped in and said "That must have been his twin brother Dave, their identical you know."

Temporarily stunned, the woman smiled and told me how much I looked like my brother. Sensing an opportunity to have some fun, I asked her if Dave had been friendly to her and if she had smelled alcohol on his breath. She assured me that Dave was quite pleasant and did not appear to have been drinking, although he did cuss a little when his tee shot vanished into the woods.

The rest of the afternoon I posed as Dave's twin brother. One person noted that I was thinner than Dave (must have been the heat); another thought Dave was slightly taller. Nearly everyone agreed that I was the better golfer of the two (I played eighteen holes as a warm up) and had less of a temper (too tired to care).
During a particularly long wait between holes Ron loudly announced that my family history was particularly fascinating and that Dave and I had been separated at birth, the result of a hospital mix-up. Staring holes through my grinning partner, I launched into a dizzying off-the-cuff tale of mistaken identity which landed Dave in an Amish farming community for most of his youth. My twin had taught himself to play golf with a shorted corn stalk and a ball of yarn back in his family barn in Pennsylvania. Dave would later shun the ways of his adoptive parents and travel to New York, where we would miraculously meet face-to-face when paired as two single golfers by a nearsighted starter at Bethpage Golf Course, home of the 2009 U.S. Open. I could have killed Ron.

By the end of the round I was getting sick of Dave, a twin who did not even exist. As I walked to my car for the second time, a person from one of the business booths waved and wished me a good night. "Thank you!" I said, lowering my clubs into the trunk. "Your welcome" she replied "I'm sorry, which one are you, Jon or Dave?" I wanted to answer "I'm the other brother Larry", but frankly, I didn't have the strength.