Yesterday afternoon, in what has been perhaps the most eagerly awaited event on the international sports calendar this year, Menick and Vaughan met for the third time to determine the ultimate winner of their miniature golf competition. Each golfer had one win under his belt from their previous matchups. Once again meeting in the shadow of Stuyvesant High School on Manhattan's East Side, the tension was palpable. Parents hustled their children off the course, covering their ears and hiding behind the bunkers generously provided by the NYPD. Helicopters hovered overhead, while hovercraft helicoptered in the roiling waters surrounded the pier on which the couse is located. Filling out their foursome were Kate Menick, who has come in second following both of Menick's and Vaughan's wins, and Sheryl Kaczmarek, whose miniature golf skills are...uh...beyond category.
The fans cheered when Menick knocked in the first hole-in-one of the game, stunning Vaughan, who immediately demanded that they start offering cocktail service on the course. But never down for long, Vaughan in turn stunned Menick with his own hole-in-one soon after. At this point the fan-packed bleachers collapsed into the Hudson. There were no survivors worth mentioning.
At the end of the first nine, the score was tied 20-20, with KM back two and SK banging on the refreshment kiosk with her putter and threatening bloody murder if Vaughan's demand for cocktails wasn't met right this minute. Heading down the back nine, Menick stumbled badly, scoring a 4 and looking like a goner, while KM started slipping up slowly, and Vaughan kept his head down, his eye on the ball, his shoulder to the wheel, his nose to the grindstone and his ear to the ground as he grabbed the lead by the tail and looked it straight between the antlers. But Menick refused to succumb to the yips, the yaps or the yups, and played his steadiest golf since his mano-a-mano with Arnold Palmer back in '61, while the yips, the yaps or the yups were all over Vaughan, and no matter how much she banged her putter, SK simply couldn't get anything with whiskey in it.
And then the game ended, and the score was tallied. And Menick and Vaughan were tied, with KM one stroke behind, again, always the bridesmaid and never the bride, the groom, or even the minister, while SK muttered something about taking up bowling or archaeology or maybe solo synchronized swimming. As the course was closing for evensong, Menick and Vaughan were unable to conduct a sudden-death playoff. Meaning that, as we head into the 2015-16 debate season, the blood feud remains unsettled.
Let the trash talk begin.
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