“Why does he get to cut the line?” my daughter asked as we waited in line to play golf, just her and me, no sisters.
It was 2pm the day before Thanksgiving, a time when the people who came out for golf weren’t there to compete – that’s the early a.m. crowd – but to have fun.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Do you know him?”
“No idea,” I said, looking at the tall, ripped guy with blonde hair flowing from under his hat and an untucked shirt that flared up when he wailed at the ball.
“That’s our quarterback,” the man next to me said. “You’re the only one trying not to stare at him.”
“Is that Travis Kelce???” my daughter asked.
“No, ma’am. That’s Trevor Lawrence.”
“We’ve got to make room for our quarterback,” the starter added.
Now whispering, she asked again: “But why does he get to cut the line, Daddy?”
For those who haven’t played golf on vacation, it’s a mix when you don’t have four players. Anyone can be thrown in with you or you could end up playing on your own and waiting on every shot. We were a two-some, the couple in front of us was a two-some and the quarterback of the Jacksonville Jaguars was a two-some, though his girlfriend seemed to be just riding along in the cart.
“It’s hard to explain,” I said.
I actually didn’t have an explanation. I hadn’t ever thought of an answer to: why do athletes get preference like this? Why wasn’t he paired up with one of the two-somes, as we were?
Cutting the line has a long history of not working out well in corporate America: my favorite example is still those GM executives who nearly ruined the company in the Great Recession. They took the elevator every day to the 39th floor, skipping over all the workers who could tell them what wasn’t working.
“Is he famous like Travis Kelce,” my daughter asked.
“No, Travis Kelce is hugely famous because he’s Taylor Swift’s boyfriend,” I said.
“Is he famous like Patrick Mahomes?”
“Probably not as famous. He won a Super Bowl.”
“So, what is he??
“He’s Jacksonville famous,” I said, which sounded like a slight but wasn’t meant to be.
Last season, as the Jaguars quarterback, Lawrence led the team to a much better season than anyone imagined possible.
Schools spend a lot of time teaching kids to stand in line, so my daughter’s question came from a spot of genuine inquiry. And every parent has heard a kid’s echoing cry of, “It’s not fair.”
But to cut the line on a golf course on a holiday weekend doesn’t save you any time. There are 100 people in front of you who don’t know you’re behind them. You’re still going to be playing as slowly as everyone else – just by yourself.
I never came up with a good reason.
What would you have said?
