Friends and habanero mustard wings in the Ozarks

What happens in Lake of the Ozarks stays in Missouri.
Last week was the annual trip of about a dozen of us four hours south to the resort area built around the lake created when the Bagnell Dam hydroelectric facility backed up the Osage River. That dynamic created a lake, and an economic boondoggle that includes resorts, condos, environmental tourism, and a lot of golf courses – about a dozen in all.
I’ve been going down to the Ozarks for about five years with friends, some of whom became friends after I started going down.
The trip down is usually a good conversation which, for me, is absolutely worth the trip.
We play about a hundred holes of golf over the four days we’re down there. It would have been 118 this year, but rain moved in and we headed for home Friday.
This isn’t something that’s defined by the group I go with. There are a lot of people from this area who group up and head there for a week of golf. It’s the time away with friends where great times and laughter, an occasional beverage at dinner, or a cigar on a deck or out on the course that offer peace in the chaos. 
I’m way better at creating smoke rings than landing in a fairway, or sinking a 20-foot putt. I regularly hit out of the fairway and into the woods where I gently look for my ball and a possible shot through the trees. This year, I actually found two Mark Pothitakis Family Dentistry Titleist ProV1 golf balls. So you know there are southeast Iowa golfers duffing around Deer Chase or Old Kinderhook.
We always play for money and then typically forget about it after we’re done. This year we played the first 18 in teams of threes and then played back another 9 in a scramble, where everyone hits a first shot on each hole and then you all play from the best position throughout the hole.
After golf is usually dinner at one of the gazillion restaurants around Osage Beach, Camdenton, or Bagnell Dam. They have one restaurant just off the dam called Lucky’s and it’s an Iowa bar. We went there Monday night and I got some wings to snack on and an individual pizza. The pizza went back to the house that night because my face was on fire. I got a habanero mustard sauce on the wings, and they were so hot, my tongue went numb. It was weird, like I couldn’t really feel myself swallow. We’d been there before. I think a couple years back we watched the Iowa girls in the Final Four there, but I would’ve remembered these wings. They were very, very good, and I couldn’t stop eating them, but I think the heat from them swelled my stomach closed because the only thing I could put in there was water. No beer, that just added to the searing pain that not only turned my taste buds to ash, but seemingly burned the skin on the outside of my mouth.

I had to go to the restroom to splash water on my face after eating the dozen. I asked the proprietor how hot they were before I ordered them and he said, “Well, they’re a little spicy, but they’re really good.”
We usually play Euchre in the evenings or sit on the deck and talk overlooking a western inlet of the lake. A couple of the guys bring fishing tackle and fish off the docks below the houses. The last couple times we went, the fishing wasn’t very good, but there have been some better weeks.
But the real value of these annual trips is building memories in the short time we’re here. I do my best to help create fun memories with the guys, because my golf game, although slowly improving, is still not up to “par”.
The thing about golf that’s more frustrating than anything is not miss-hitting a ball. It’s constantly miss-hitting. Why is it when you get the yips, they hang around FORE!-ever. But when you hit a ball well, and you go back up to hit the next time, that one great shot is fleeting. Why doesn’t that stick in the toolbox? Not to mention that it’s a fairly expensive sport to play, especially if you get fitted clubs, which I haven’t yet. But getting custom clubs assures those clubs are fit to your height, your swing, and your range of motion, which has to improve your score. So then you have to weigh the decision to spend a couple grand on equipment, to improve scores, or just play with off-the-rack equipment and hope your game improves.
My take so far has been to play on hope and repetition but know that’s probably never going to be enough. So I play the class clown and give people other things to remember than just shooting an 86 or whatever every time they go out.
And Euchre’s a game where I have trouble staying in my lane, too. These guys are seasoned veterans at that game, as well, and they play so fast sometimes there’s like 12 cards laying in the middle of the table and everyone tossing their cards at feverish paces and I have no clue. I know how to play and I know how to take a trick, but I like things neat and sequential. Some people tap on the table to pass, or knock on a cut and you have to learn the nuances. Some groups don’t believe in farmer’s hands and who the hell wants to play with three nines and two tens?
I usually just sit at the end of the table and watch television or something so I’m a part of the evening, but not frustrated at these older dogs teaching the newer dog old tricks.
The Ozarks in the spring is an annual rite of passage for me. I certainly need to improve the golf game, but I pull my weight everywhere else.
Where I’m pulling my weight will just have to stay nestled in the hills and golf cart paths and sand traps of Ozark golf courses – But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.