It's not like this tournament took over my life or anything, but it really did. We ended up with 123 participants and I had a total of 27 volunteers who showed up to handle scoring, check-in, starting, rules, the scoring tent, pictures, closest to the pin, spotting and a couple who are retired and just hung around, but didn't want to really do anything other than visit, drink free water and eat snacks and then have a free lunch. They also left right after lunch to supposedly go have a healthy nap after all of the excitement. I had 7 kids who withdrew from the tournament for various reasons and two who just failed to show up.
The tournament is being known as the "Lyon tournament" because of the special mojo that I brought to the 41st annual event. In 4o previous events, the tournament had seen only one hole-in-one. In this event, we were witness to two holes-in-one. One was by an 11 year old boy playing from the red tees and only playing nine holes. He shot a 39 and his ace was from 96 yards with a pitching wedge. When I congratulated him and shook his hand, I asked him if it was his first ace. He shook his head no and held up two fingers. I turned and held up one finger for him. 51 and golfing for 35 years and no hole-in-one and some smarmy kid already has two. The second ace was a 16 year old who also recorded his second career hole-in-one and he did it from 136 yards with a pitching wedge. These kids are good.
The low boy's score was 66 from the 6400 yard blue tees and second was a 68 from a 14 year old boy. The low girl was 14 years old and shot a 77. Very nice. The event is very enjoyable, but also somewhat humbling. These kids all play with state of the art equipment and 9 out of 10 of them hit Pro V1-x balls. In fact we bought balls for both of the guys who had hole-in-ones and they both chose Pro v1-x balls. We also had an eagle on the 465 yard par four finishing hole when a young man of 15 knocked in a three wood from 200 yards.
Bob was scoring for the 9 and 10 year olds and he said they were under fire from the driving range as the 16-17 year olds were hitting 300 yard drives off the practice tees. The day mostly went off without a hitch, but we had one guy who showed up and was recruiting for a rival youth golf program and I had to run him off. We had one of the old retired guys make an incorrect ruling on the course. He allowed a drop for a female competitor because branches from a neighbor's tree were impeding her swing. He was NOT on the rules committee and I asked him to stay off the course after that. Our rules chair was ready to strangle him. He referred to the branches as an outside influence. We referred to him as an idiot.
There were many great stories and one really sad ending to a great day of golf. One of the 16 year olds was having his best tournament round of golf coming in to 18. He was three under par and put his second shot up against the fence. He couldn't hit it and I would have faced the wrong way and punched a three iron toward the green. Instead he took a penalty drop, but wanted to drop within about two feet of the fence. We told him that he had to mark the spot and then a place another tee two club lengths from the ball no nearer the hole. He marked that off and dropped the ball at the furthest point with a tree in front of him. I don't know if he was confused or what, but he could have dropped the ball anywhere within the two clubs. He ended up hitting the tree, knocking his fourth shot over the green, chipping on and three putting for an 8 and a round of 73. He finished tied for second, but took 4th place based on the tiebreaker, where he shot a 40 on the back nine to go with his 33 on the front. OUCH. The young man was shaking when he came to the scorers table. He could barely control his hands as he filled out the card. To make matters worse, the guy he was scoring shot an 83, but was the one to knock his ball in for eagle on that hole.
I played golf Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week and was exhausted by the end of the weekend. I shot 41 in the twilight league, 81 at Wolf Run in Reno (with the marmints above), 87 at the 7000 yard Old Greenwood course in Truckee and 84 in my tournament on Sunday at Diamond Oaks. It was a fun trip and I lost some money gambling, but ate well, drank too much and played some decent golf. Mel and I were paired as a best ball twosome on Friday and shot 38+25 = 63. Good stuff.
Jennifer has some exciting news on two fronts. She finally has made contact with her birth mother. She lives in Ohio and has two sons and two daughters. One of the daughters had a child within weeks of Samantha's birth. Her oldest brother had on his facebook page listed under "people I'd Like to Meet": The sister that I've never met. Jennifer is on cloud nine and plans to meet her mother, Barbara, this Summer in Vegas as well as her two sisters who plan to travel to Vegas to meet Jennifer. The other news is that Jennifer and John have bought a house! It is 1850 square feet, three bedroom, two full bathrooms and located next to a greenbelt with a jungle gym and play area for kids. Both Jennifer and John are very excited. I told Jennifer to give praise to God for all of the good fortune in her life. I also said, "You've got a beautiful daughter, a great house, what's next?" She said, "Marriage?" Hey she brought it up, I didn't.
I finally made contact with Dad and Shirley and it turns out they've been up in Colorado at a car show and visiting Darryl and Cheryl. The trip was ugly with some minor car problems and one gas issue with a leaking fuel hose that stunk up the car and poured some $5 gas on the ground. It was good to get caught up. I also told Dad and Shirley that David is going to quit his job this month and spend part of the Summer traveling. I told them to work on him for a Canada trip. David could come up and help Dad with any projects around the house and they could give him room and board and act as tour guides for him. I'm sure he'd love to see Aunt Glad up in Cultis Lake. With David, it won't happen unless you push him a little bit. First thing he'll need is a passport.
Well, this was late, but I've been busy. I hope all are well and living a life that God would be proud of. Ciao.
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