Golf with Friends

Finally the rain has stopped!  So this weekend I was able to get out and golf with some old friends and a new friend too.  The weather was gorgeous!  Blue, blue Texas skies are hard to beat.  With so much rain lately, the ground is still saturated and every morning a heavy dew coats everything so an early morning tee time meant wet, mushy fairways and little roll, but we didn't care.  Had to remember to take a towel with you onto the fairways and greens so could wipe off your clubface after a practice swing and everything squished as you walked.  With so much sunshine, the day warmed up quickly however, and the humidity made for a nice steam bath :)  The mosquitos, however, were HORRIBLE and almost ate us alive on some holes, even coming for a ride in the cart as they snacked on us. 

Played at one of my local favorites, Hawks Creek which is adjacent to the Joint Naval Reserve Base.  A few planes were out flying on this day, mainly big old transport planes with propellers.  They can be a little loud, but not a problem on such a nice day for golf.  Now there are a few holes on this course that have some pretty unfavorable forward tee boxes.  In both cases the holes have the same basic lay out -- dogleg right, and they have large oak trees about 50-70 yards in front and slightly to the right of the forward tee box.  Straight ahead and to the left are sand traps only about 75-150 yards away.  It seems they figure most of those who use the forward tees must not hit it more than 100 yards off the tee, but if you hit that shot or lay up to that shot, you then have an incredibly long shot toward the green. One of these holes is a par 4 and the second shot would be about 200+ yards, while the second hole is a par 5 and you would still be about 250 yards out to an elevated green protected across the front by three sand traps.  So on these holes I try to hit a nice high cut drive over/around the trees on the right and put the ball in the fairway beyond them.  What a great day it was as on both of these tee shots, I hit beautiful cuts that bent over and around the trees and landed in great positions for my second shots; both drives were about 190+ yards.  I made a par on both although I had putts for birdie. 

Putting was not as good all day as did not place my irons onto the greens in the best of places all day.  In fact no birdies all day which was not what I had planned.  And my 3-wood and I had an up-and-down day again!  Hit some terrible shots with it and then on last hole hit a really nice uphill shot -- have to keep my right leg bent at knee more consistently!

So I shot an 86 for the round, but had a GREAT time!  Two of my playing partners were old friends from work, Tony and Rich.  Because they are very shorthanded in their departments, they have had very few days off and so little extra time for golf since spring.  We had not played together in quite a while but they are so much fun and I always laugh quite a bit when we play that it does not matter so much if I miss some putts.  We were joined by a nice young man, Chris who had a good game.  He had just recently played at La Cantera as well so we chatted about some of our favorite holes on that course.  So what a GREAT day for golf -- good friends, good laughs, good shots and good fun. 

Then to make it extra nice this weekend, my TCU Horned Frogs beat Clemson at Clemson!!!!  Great game although not on television so listened on the radio and then went to see the second half at the campus coliseum where the online video feed from ESPN360.com was shown on large screen.  About 500 of us super fans yelled our heads off :)  Great victory for our program and now we are ranked #11 in the nation.

Finally, I took a little road trip as well this weekend to gather some photos of war memorials/cemeteries for my project that I described in a previous post.  Travelled to a few small towns in North Texas.  Mainly I wanted to see the cemetery in Terrell that has a small section for the 20 graves of RAF pilots who died while undergoing flight training during World War II.  The cemetery plot is in the traditional Commonwealth Graves site style -- the English garden -- and it is in a small Texas town and in a HUGE old cemetery dating from the 1800s.  Very unusual and really stands out in a typical American cemetery, but I love it.  I find the British military cemeteries so peaceful and a little piece of England so far from home.  The headstones are uniform as are the identifications while at the bottom are placed personal sentiments chosen by family.  The setting is surrounded by flowers and native flowering shrubs.  For this plot, the local Terrell Heritage Society is responsible for the maintenance and care of the plots.  Did have an interesting run-in with gentlemen at local historical society who wanted to dive into a discussion of who was really responsible for the start of the Civil War; I politely escaped and moved on to another interesting site in a tiny town of Blooming Grove that has a large memorial in the city park with the names of all those from the surrounding area who served in America's wars as well as the burial site for two K-9s who saw action in WWII.

More golf is on the agenda for the next day or so as well while the weather remains so nice although a little cooler.  Fall has arrived so have to get out and enjoy the great weather days when they are here.

Rain, rain go AWAY!

Typical Texas -- and I say this as a native -- we tend to get rain all at once or all one week and then go weeks/months without.  So September has been rainy, rainy, rainy - yuck.  This plays havoc with my golf game.  No, I do not play golf in the pouring rain or when there are storms around and truthfully, not a big fan of playing in much of any rain.  In my younger days I played soccer and played in any weather -- rain and sleet and so cold that my fingers and toes went numb!  But now that I am a little older (and maybe wiser), I tend to not want to PAY to play in yucky weather.  Just gets hard to keep grips dry and nothing fun about ball skidding off club face because of water or flinging mud all over myself and playing partner :)

I will admit that my willingness to play in poor weather, however, is partially dependent on who I am playing with LOL!  I once played a round in the most miserable of weather but my male playing partner that day was really HOT - so it was worth it :)  Of course if it is a little cool and wet , it can be fun to warm up together later LOL.  [If I am just desperate to get out on the coures in the winter when pretty cold, the key is to go out early when the much older retired guys and members play as they often have golf cart covers and heaters.]

Now college football is a little different...I will and have gone to watch my TCU Horned Frogs even in the pouring rain or extreme cold.  I have my rain suit that I purchased for less than $10 bucks at the Army/Navy store and it is great.  The jacket has big pockets for my radio and will even go over a sweater, and while the pants are usually pretty long for me, I just roll everything up and it keeps me dry!  I have played golf in this suit and not too bad.  I have 2 clear sets so my TCU colors can still be seen :)

It may be dry this weekend but of course EVERYBODY will be out trying to play since it has been so long and I have some other commitments :)  That's okay I can play Monday and by then the courses will no longer be big mud pits!  Of course there is major front coming that night and MORE rain.

Update on golf partner:  Out of hospital and doing much better so that is good, but not sure when/if we will be golfing again anytime soon.  Oh well it has been fun and I have learned some things.

I will be travelling around the state especially east and south Texas, however, as I am combining 2 research projects--golf and history.  Besides checking out a variety of golf courses, I am building an online database of war memorials that I will use in teaching and writing; this is a long term project and really is worldwide, but Texas has so many memorials that it makes for great weekend trips since my current schedule allows it.  In 2006 I spent 6 weeks living in Rome (Italy) studying Trajan's column as part of an NEH Summer Seminar but also had the opportunity to visit a variety of other war memorials including US, British and German WWII cemeteries.  Other commitments kept me from moving forward on this project but now I have time to really start building this project.  Should be fun & maybe can find some dry courses:)

B-days & Trophies on course

Forgot to mention in my last post that another birthday has come and gone.  I think the universe is giving me hints to just stay at home more these days.  Started when my golf partner decided he could not get together for a golf birthday bash with me; he did call to sing Happy Birthday (much surprised) and promised he would "make it up to me."  Hmmm not sure about that one coming from a guy, especially since he still owes me for the last round of golf we played :) but hey I am an optimist!  I decided to play a round that day since surely the golf gods would smile on such a special day for me.  The gods were hit and miss!  Arrived on a Friday morning to a really quiet course!  The early morning retirees were already half way through and there was just no one else around.  So as is unfortunately becoming my norm, I played alone.  Did shoot a 77 so that was good.  That evening again my karma began to hit a wall.  Ended up with just one other girlfriend going out; she did her best to find a happening place to have fun, but -- and I am not kidding here -- all the places we went were DEAD!   Even a local well known nightclub known for its nightlife was almost empty, probably good since I'm not really nightclub person.  Had some good but expensive drinks though.  We decided to just stick with our local OTB where the bartenders know us and the shaken margaritas are GREAT and affordable -- plus chips and salsa always a hit :)

Haven't played as much golf lately and some frustrations when I have.  My golf partner/swing czar has been very, very ill this past weekend and in the hospital (here's hoping better soon), but now out and hopefully recovering.  Will be at least 3 weeks before ready to play again and know he will be chomping at the bit to get back out there.  I was VERY worried and concerned and just distracted me from wanting to play plus led to lack of sleep.

With start of semester and friend's illness I just have not been in right mindset to play as much.  When I have played... well it has been interesting....Let me start here by saying that some folks just need a slap to the back of the head occasionally to rattle their brains.  Two very recent experiences are examples.

One was a day I went to play and the course was not very busy and so off I went (yes on my own again LOL). I started catching a twosome ahead of me even though I was playing two balls; it was clear that I was gaining on them.  Soon I was forced to wait longer and longer for them at tee boxes and in fairways and they were in no hurry.  They also had NO intention of letting me play through although there was NO ONE in front of them for at least 2 holes.  In fact they would deliberately turn away and hurry to the next tee box if I came up to the green behind them.  Very, very frustrating and the round just slowed to a crawl. Now I must admit I do not much care for slow golf and this rudeness just began to make my temperature boil.  I ended up behind them the rest of the round and had other groups then waiting behind me.  If you are slowing other folks down and there is space ahead of you, then let folks play through. Now my golf partner has frankly told me that part of this is because they just do not want to let a woman play through; if true, really sad :(

The other little topic I just must mention is men who bring their "trophy" women (wives or girlfriends) to the course on BUSY days like weekends in primetime.  Now my golf partner uses this term quite a bit and I think most of you know of which I speak here.  But last week must have been "bring your trophy day" to the course -- it was loaded with men (mostly older) with young ladies who had NO clue about golf.  It is great if you want to bring your lady to the course and help her learn but not during the peak hours of the weekend; and this should especially be true if the trophy is not at LEAST a "7"!  So the rest of us had to endure these spectacles of clueless ladies who mainly did not play but would every other shot or so be given a "hands on" lesson.  This greatly slowed down the pace of play.  The gentlemen with whom I was playing were clearly aggravated by this and began to make comments.  With so many of them (I counted 5 such twosomes that I could see alone), I started aggravated but then just found it funny and sad.  You could see the guys were trying to impress the other men on the course with their women (again I reiterate they need to be at least a "7" for that to be the case) and they just loved being able to put their arms around the ladies or give them a pat on the fanny when they had swung the club -- even if the lady missed it! The guys were also trying to show off for the women.  What I found particularly humorous was when a couple of the guys were trying to appear to be really great golfers but kept duffing shots!  LOL [Hopefully he did not need to be a good golfer to impress the woman!]  One guy in my group, after watching a real spectacle on the green ahead of us as we had to wait endlessly in the middle of the fairway, turned to me after the trophy hit a putt into the hole from about a foot and had jumped up and down and then hugged and smooched her man before they finally got off the green, and said "that just gives women's golf a bad name; why don't you go give her some lessons?"  I just smiled and said "that is not women's golf and why don't you go give him some common sense?"  We all burst out laughing.  At the end of the round when I had shot a 79, my golfing group all shook my hand and told me how much fun they had playing golf with a really nice lady who sure knew how to golf and they were sorry it had taken more than 5 hours although they enjoyed the company!  So what a day it was on the course!

Weather, work and 3-wood issues

Well with the semester starting, I have not had a chance to hit the links in over a week!  Yikes.  Love my job though and other than the beginning and end of semesters, I usually have plenty of time to play. Now for the upcoming holiday weekend (or at least on Friday) the weather may not cooperate.  I will admit I do not play in the rain; as a youngster I played soccer in ANY weather even extreme cold where my fingers and toes became numb.  Now that I am older and a hopefully a little smarter :)  and I have to PAY to play, well I do not need to play in weather that makes me miserable -- so I don't!

As I have mentioned on previous posts, my 3-wood and I are not having the best relationship these days.  Of all my clubs, it is the one with which I am most inconsistent and it can drive me batty!  I have changed my grip to find more consistency (apparently I had been gripping it wrong all these years), and I am working on keeping a good swing speed as I tend to rush it.  I also have this maddening habit of straightening my legs as I swing with this club, which just makes no sense 'cause I don't do that with any other club.  My golf partner/swing czar has been trying to help me with this one, but I think I need another lesson session with him to try and get this thing consistent.  I have been working on it at the range and will have a day that I hit almost all of them just great, and then the next time only about half of them go so well.   I do not hit this club all that often in a round, mainly just on par 5s.  And if I hit it well, I can often reach the green in 2 so that I have a chance to lower my score.  Otherwise I am forced to use my 4-iron which I hit pretty well but about 20-25 yards shorter.  I do have a hybrid 3 but do not hit it much farther than 4 iron and not always as well controlled. 

So I guess I need to set up a session with my swing czar (he really owes me one anyway).  And hopefully work and weather will cooperate so I can get back on the course.

More golf courses in Central Texas I plan to try and play this fall:  Republic, Bandit, Buckhorn, Golf Club of Texas at Briggs Ranch, Olympia Hills (SA), Pecan Valley, La Cantera Palmer Course, Fort Sam Houston course, and Tapatio Springs.  Plus some in small towns I have not yet discovered!