Nathan and I had it all figured out.  The timer was set for two hours and twenty minutes as a backup in case I forgot my role in his Odyssey Black Series i9.  Now it was simply the waiting game.

The i9 is a putter.  Retail it sells for about $250.  But a number of years ago Nathan discovered ebay and since then has rarely purchased a club in his ever growing arsenal to be a scratch golfer that wasn’t online.  He’s saved a lot of money over the years and been completely satisfied with his purchases.

It takes Nathan a while to research his interests because, when it comes to golf, everything is so expensive.  So he had spent several months carefully scrutinizing his next prized item.  It came down to Friday at 4:15pm when the auction closed.  The only problem was that he had a tee time at 3:51pm and wouldn’t be able to close the deal himself.  That’s where I came in.

Under strict instructions to call him at 4pm (thanks to the reminder from the timer we set), he would guide me through his purchase.  It’s not that I hadn’t bought anything through ebay before, it’s just been a while and I didn’t want to mess anything up.

He had decided that the most he would spend on the i9 was $15o.  When we set the timer the current bid was $50.  So I waited.

He called a few minutes before the timer went off.  And it was a good thing because the computer had gone into sleep mode and was having a hard time waking up.  While I was booting up the Mac in case the old PC decided it simply was not going to be cooperative, I heard Nathan say, “Would you like me to tend?”  It’s golf lingo for standing next to the flag getting ready to pull it out of the cup, if necessary.   I figured the guy he was playing with was probably very understanding of his quiet conversation with me since a putter was involved.

When old faithful revealed the refreshed auction page, the putter was sitting at $195 with less than two minutes to go.  So I had plenty of time to submit a bid.  “What do you want me to do?”  I asked Nathan.

“Don’t bid,”  he said.  “My max was $150 and I’m not going over that.  I’ll try again later.”  And with that it was done.  No putter.  No regrets.

That was a perfect example of how expensive items should be done.  Since both my boys pay for all their discretionary spending, they have learned to get the best value for their dollar.  They research, think it over, try things out, research some more, then make a decision.  $150 was all Nathan was willing to spend.   So when the temptation was in front of him, he never wavered in his decision.  That certainly does not mean that there won’t ever be any small compromise.  But his experience has told him another putter will come along and he’s willing to wait.  

Besides, I’m not sure he really needs a new putter.   He sunk one in from 10 feet on that first hole.