Chestnut Hill was a quaint little town where everyone knew everyone else’s secrets, except for the ghost of Old Man Wilkins. Rumor had it, he haunted the golf course at night after a freak lightning accident claimed his life during the annual charity tournament. The legend was simple: play a round at midnight and Old Man Wilkins might join you—if he liked you. If he didn’t, you were likely to go home with a streak of gray hair and a stutter.
Bertie McGrath, a local amateur comedian known for his bad puns and knack for finding trouble, decided to test the myth one stormy Friday night. Armed with a flashlight, a putter he borrowed from the club’s pro shop (without asking), and a tub of his mom’s leftover lasagna, Bertie sauntered onto the green at 11:59 PM.
The first swing was perfect, too perfect. The ball, as if propelled by a jet engine, zoomed through the night air and landed in a sand trap. Bertie shrugged, muttering, “Looks like I’m getting bunkered down tonight!” He laughed at his own joke, unaware that the wind had shifted, carrying with it a distinct, low chuckle that wasn’t his.
As he approached the sand trap, the laughter grew louder. A translucent figure wearing a checkered vest and wielding an antique golf club floated before him. It was Old Man Wilkins, and he looked unimpressed.
“Did you really bring lasagna?” the ghost asked, his spectral eyebrows raised.
“It’s four cheese!” Bertie squeaked, holding up the container like a peace offering. Wilkins nodded, his stern expression softening. No one had ever brought him food before. The tournament, it seemed, was on.
The two teed off into the moonlight, each swing accompanied by gusts of cold wind, rattling tree branches, and a chorus of frogs that croaked on key. It was a horror-comedy for the ages. Bertie missed every shot, cursed by Wilkins’s trickery—a well-timed ghostly whistle here, a sudden appearance through a bunker wall there. At one point, Bertie tripped over a frog that somehow croaked out a laugh.
The stakes rose higher. Wilkins’s eyes glowed a spectral blue when Bertie, just by sheer accident, managed to sink a putt from 15 feet. “Beginner’s luck?” Wilkins hissed, but there was a glint of admiration in his transparent eyes.
Finally, with only one hole left, lightning cracked the sky. Wilkins pointed to the last hole with a bony finger, his face serious. “If you win, I’ll go back to rest. But if I win, you’re my caddy for eternity.”
Bertie swallowed hard and glanced at the lasagna tub. “Can we make that ‘eternity plus lasagna’?” Wilkins actually chuckled, the sound resonating with an almost fatherly tone. Bertie took his shot, the ball spinning and twirling as though it were deciding its own fate. It rolled, teetered on the edge of the hole, and, at the last second, dropped in.
Wilkins sighed, a smile breaking his ghostly visage. “Well played, Bertie,” he whispered, before fading into a thin mist that smelled faintly of old golf gloves and... cheese?
As Bertie dragged himself home in the early dawn, exhausted but victorious, he laughed at the absurdity of it all. Chestnut Hill had a new hero—the man who beat the ghost golfer and lived to tell the tale. He also learned that even spirits couldn’t resist a four-cheese lasagna.
The next morning, everyone at the club found Bertie asleep on a bench, golf club in one hand and lasagna in the other. And from that day on, nobody ever played golf alone at night again—but they did bring extra food, just in case.
Happy ending? For Bertie, yes. For the town? Well, they gained a new legend and one amateur comedian who finally had a joke worth telling.
