We started on Thursday at The Thoroughbred. Dave and Rolfe cleaned up on the bets... Dave's game was the best we've seen from him and he basically was even up with the rest of us. Except we made the error of giving him his usual stroke a hole (except on par 3's). Dave and Rolfe both cleaned up on the side bets we made (we usually play Wolf and Snakes). Conditions were dry and hot, and the greens were fast. Dave and Rolfe ran into a little golf cart trouble on the third nine we played (see photos below). We managed to squeeze in 27 holes... even though the certificates we purchased were technically only good for 18. Thursday night was a feast -- Dave brought up filets and lobster tails and Rob and I grilled them on the Weber grill.
The cottage was a terrific home base for our weekend. We had an abundance of space, a nice kitchen, and they even have a combination DVD Player/VCR now. Rob arrived just slightly later than the rest of us, and therefore earned his place on the living room couch while Rolfe, Dave and I all had our own beds upstairs. (We've all taken an oath that from now on, the couch spot is a revolving assignment.) The first night it was so warm in the cottage that most of us woke up drenched in sweat at one point or another during the night.
The only drawback to the cottage -- which by the way has a phenomenal view of Stony Lake -- is that the water pressure in the shower is one notch below "trickle." At least what we had of water was hot, however.
Friday we all slept in a bit, and after Dave cooked breakfast we headed up to Ludington to play The Hemlock. The Hemlock was in incredible condition -- the greens were fairly fast and true and the fairways were beautiful, although they were cut so tight that it was hard to get a good fairway wood off them. On top of that, the staff at The Hemlock were *so* friendly and cooperative... quite a change from the general malaise we saw at The Thoroughbred. We all shot our best individual rounds of the weekend at The Hemlock, despite how difficult the course can be. (Of course we played from the White tees, but I prefer to believe that the course's wonderful condition was what contributed to lower scoring.)
Saturday we had a 6:15 tee time at Benona Shores for round #1 of the golf tournament. 6:15 is early! Even so, we were the second group off the tee. It was just light enough to see our tee shots, and for once we all hit workable drives down the first fairway. We played fairly well... 6-under for the day, including a couple of nice birdies on some par three holes which we normally seem to par. I even won a sleeve of golf balls on #6 for hitting my tee shot into a circle around the hole that's about 10 feet in diameter. Dave had a very memorable "clutch" tee shot on #4, which put us just 75 yards or so from the green. We had difficulty with this and other par 4's, however; although we were never in any danger of a bogey, we just could not seem to hit an approach shot close enough to make many birdies.
One advantage of such an early tee time is that not only do we play more quickly but we finish very early. We had enough time for us to drive back to the cottage and have a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and sausage, cooked once again by Dave. Then it was off to Grand View Golf Club for another round.
The Grand View round was especially notable for the quantity of beer and other alcohol consumed. Even though I was playing quite consistently until this point, I for one discovered that the amount of strokes you take in golf can sometimes be directly proportional to the number of beers you drink. On at least one occasion I nearly fell over after a tee shot. Luckily, alcohol also has a numbing effect, so although I was in a persistently grumpy mood, it didn't last long once the round was over. Rob -- our most likely designated driver -- drove us back to The Par 5, where we gorged on deep fried asparagus and had sandwiches. Then it was back to the cottage for euchre!
Deep Fried Asparagus
Sunday we discovered that our 54 score on Saturday had put us in the Championship Flight, two strokes back from the leaders. And in fact the leaders at 52 were the same people who usurped our usual 6:00am tee time the day before... it turns out that if you win the tournament one year, you can select your tee time the next year over anyone else's preference. So the leaders on Sunday were the same people who won the prior year. We knew we had our work cut out for us.
Sunday's weather started out to be very ominous. We could hear thunder in the distance, and once or twice felt a small sprinkle of rain on the first couple of holes. We played more quickly in case we were going to be rained out, but the rain miraculously never materialized. In fact, on about hole #7, the sun actually started to break through and we played the rest of the round without any threat of bad weather. Unfortunately, this didn't help our play at all... we shot 55 (5 under par for Benona Shores) and once again couldn't seem to make birdie on the par 4's.
So... we ate lunch at the course, turned in our card and then parted ways. Dave emailed all of us later to let us know that we finished in 4th place at 109, five strokes off the pace. And the winners were, again, the team in front of us at 104 (52-52). Dave also got a call to let him know that he won a nice golf bag in the raffle, so it wasn't a complete loss for us all!
Overall, I think this was the most well-planned and well-executed weekend we've had yet... probably because we all were much more in contact with each other over the motnhs and weeks preceding the outing. It was a great weekend, and we're all anxiously awaiting the Fall outing. It's a shorter weekend (Friday-Sunday) so it doesn't have the endless party feel of the June weekend, but still a lot of fun. We're also talking about possibly getting together as a group (maybe even with families) to do something over the summer. It just seems too long in between tournaments!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment