The new Pac-Man

IT'S LIKE NOON on a Saturday a couple months back and I'm on the 10th tee on the par three course at McMenamin's Edgefield Drinking Resort in Troutdale, Oregon. I'm there at the resort with a group of seven couples because my buddy Brent is turning 31 that particular weekend—the specific age, of course, not having any sort of significance other than it gave us all a great excuse to take a road trip and party like college students.

While in the box, Brent and I are sipping what must be our seventh Lynchburg Lemonade of the morning—a massive level of a.m. consumption that would not have been attained were it not for an hour-long rain delay that relegated us to the clubhouse bar. Anyway, seeing as the 10th green is only 85 yards away, I walk up to the tee with a nine iron and coolly whack the ball onto the wrong fairway—30 yards directly to the right of me.

The moral of this story? I, like most Americans, suck royally at the sport of golf. I suck so bad that I have to be out of town and lathered out of my skull to even consider picking up a shaft.

This type of frustration with real-life links is music to the ears of the folks in Illinois who manufacture a video golf arcade game called Golden Tee, seemingly present in every workingman's drinking establishment in the state of Washington. "A guy can be 4 foot 5 inches and 500 pounds and still beat anyone in the house," boasts Marketing Director Gary Colabuno.

THE GAME'S RULES of the road are basic: there's a big ball in the center of the machine that you pull back and slam forward with the palm of your hand. The harder you smack it, the further the video golf ball goes. If you want the ball to slice or hook, you follow the in-your-face instructions written on the faceplate. Depending on what version of the game they're playing, players can choose from a variety of glamorously named courses such as Aspen Hills, Royal Bannockburn, Crimson Rock, and Suerte Del Sol.

With so many former arcade junkies now content to sit at home and play their favorite games on their PC or via the Internet, the coin-op arcade industry is suffering through tough times. Golden Tee, however, flies in the face of this industry trend, with virtually all revenue generated the old-fashioned way—via round, silver coins with our first president's head on 'em.

"The PC version was a flop," admits Colabuno. "The arcade game is more successful because of its social aspect. It brings the competitive spirit of the American male to the forefront. It's the Pac-Man of the New Millennium."

In essence, the game is simple, fun, and most often accompanied by pitchers of cheap, domestic lager. In other words, it's fucking addictive.

And, by Colabuno's estimates (which, by virtue of my own addiction, I'll vouch for), his company's video crack is everywhere—especially in Washington, the borders of which contain fully one-fifth (approximately 2,000, estimates Colabuno) of all Golden Tee machines nationwide. "I don't know how to explain it, but Washington state is a total enclave for machines and talent," says Colabuno.

I'll explain it to you, Gary: We have a helluva lot of rain here and we like our beer. But I'll give Colabuno this, he's right about the talent in Washington—a trip to the Golden Tee Web site's national leader board (the game's most recent version, "Fore," tracks players' scores at http://itsgames.com.) revealed that the amount of topflight players from the Evergreen State roughly mirrored our ridiculously high concentration of the game's machines. In fact, the winner of the company's most recent tournament in Vegas was none other than Chuck Akin, an electrician from Spokane. Word on the street is that Chuck doesn't quite push Colabuno's 500-pound threshold, although it's probably only a matter of time.

Not surprisingly, interviews with local Golden addicts revealed a high correlation between video golf and substance abuse, so much so that each of my subjects insisted that I use pseudonyms when documenting their exploits. "Jumbo," a Wazzu grad who I found hunkered over a machine at Rory's in Edmonds, fondly recalls his days on the machine at the Cougar Cottage in Pullman—before he "turned pro."

"They had the machine in such proximity to the bar and the men's bathroom that you could actually pound [beer], play, and piss an entire night away without ever leaving a 10-foot radius," jokes Jumbo, who admits to having "masturbatory fantasies" connected to the sound of the game's virtual commentator, an annoying video voice that chastises players who land in the woods with snide "get out the chain saw" remarks.

"Whatever the reason, it's quite possible that I enjoy a $2.50 half hour on that machine more than I do a $75, four-hour, back-wrenching session on a real course."