Three Young Kids and an Old Guy

This post is from earlier this summer when I played in two volleyball tournaments with my two children and my niece and nephew. Our team name was The Frying Pan Wolves (we picked nouns from a hat), but we became known as three young kids and an old guy around the tournaments. I get to the golf about halfway through the post.

7-3-10
In the Settin’ in the Sun tournament, we took 3rd. We took 3rd out of four teams, but hey, we got 3rd. We also, however, took one game off of everybody we played.
In pool play, we beat the eventual winners in one game. Their team was called The Campfire Girls even though they had two guys on their team, George and his son Reed.
We played against and beat George regularly about fifteen years ago, but not this time. His wife played middle back, and they had a really consistent hitter, some other girl, who hit strong side the whole time.
We beat the team Happy Feet from Dulce in the first round of the tournament. We played only one game to fifteen since they took so long to eat their lunch. The other two teams had already started and finished at least one game in a 2 out of 3 to 11 match. Chris, the tournament coordinator, asked if we would play just one game to keep things moving along, and we agreed. We told the Happy Feet team right before we played, and they were okay with it too, and then we beat them badly. I think it was the lunch. That, and they didn’t warm up at all, but we also played up! We beat them fair and square. They were a bit miffed, though, when they found out the other two teams were playing 2 out of 3, but it was too late. That was the beginning of a small drop of bad blood between our two teams. It was a tiny controversy. We lost our next match against The Campfire Girls, and then we were up against Happy Feet again. They beat us that time, and we were out.
Today, we played them again in the first round of the 4th of July tournament in Farmington in the middle bracket. What are the odds? We played them really tough again this time, much better than the last time we lost to them. It went to a third game in another 2 out of 3 match. We won the first game. They won the second, and then we lost the third. At the very end of the last game, the score was tied at 8. We then quickly lost the next three points and the match with mostly unforced errors. We won our next match, but then we lost the match after that, and we were out again.
I was so proud of all four of our children, though. They are so close to learning how to win, a necessary skill in any sport. It’s doing what needs to be done at the end of a match to finish off the other team. It takes years of experience and confidence to gain that skill of how to win, but they learned a bunch today and last Saturday. The more they play, and the more they get beat and frustrated, the better they’ll become. I know. Guy used to beat me all the time in basketball. Although I did not become an all-star in basketball, I would not have earned scholarships at Fort Lewis every year if it weren’t for Guy.
In volleyball, the rule was for everyone to serve Pat, because I was no good. That changed as I got better and better. Don’t serve me now; I can serve receive with some of the best.
For our children it will be the same. James loves volleyball, and he wants to excel at it. He faces the same problem Guy and I did, though. No volleyball for boys in this area. Maybe doubles up in the Denver area?

Enough volleyball. On to golf…

I am going to start with a scorecard review. I have three scorecards to go over and four new birdies.
C.J. was out of town playing golf in Loveland at Marianna Butte of all places, and some other places, so last Thursday Bruce and I played alone. It was his turn to choose the game, and I think he chose something to force him to really focus and play at his best. He wanted to do stroke play with handicaps included. He’s a 10, and I’m a 16. As well as I have been playing lately, I felt I had the advantage, but I had three bad holes on the front that really made the difference this time. It was closer than we thought, though, after we checked the scores when it was over.
I earned two birdies that helped the three higher scores, but it wasn’t enough. Here’s how they played out.

Hidden Valley-Hole #9-Birdie #9 of 2010
I teed off with my utility club. I might have hit the cart path, but we couldn’t see it. I ended up right on the corner of the dogleg and on the fairway, though. I was around 170 yards out, but I had the big cottonwoods in the way, but not close “in the way,” far away “in the way.” I used my 7-iron, which is more likely my 160-yard club, but I wanted to get it higher in the air. This was a swing that keeps me wanting to play golf over and over and over again. It was so smooth, so high, and it had such a great result. My ball arched through the air, with a slight draw, sailed right over the trees, landed on the green on the hump in the middle, and started to roll. It rolled down the green towards the hole. I was thinking albatross! It rolled for a long time. I kept watching as Bruce picked up his bag and headed toward the green. It stopped just below the hole, less than fifteen feet away. I had an uphill eagle putt coming up.
I saw two pieces of cotton on the green, both on the right side and both a little past the hole. I aimed for the one closer to the hole, but it did not break as much as I thought it would, and I put too much speed on it (I didn’t want to be short with an eagle putt), and I missed on the right side. I had a bit of a tricky birdie putt after that. It was downhill enough to make me really focus to find the correct line and speed. I read it right, and I rolled it well enough for my birdie.

Hidden Valley-Hole #16-Birdie #10 of 2010
I used my pitching wedge. The hole was on the front left side. My ball ended up just four feet past the hole and slightly to the left. I made the putt. Kind of anti-climactic actually.

I shot an 87. Bruce shot a 79. We were separated by 8 strokes without any handicaps, but would it be enough to win with the handicaps? Bruce sat down in the pro shop after we were done to cool off and figure it all out. He was figuring out who got pops on which holes. Tom, the new pro, said we could just take three strokes off of my score from the front and three more from the back since we are separated by six strokes. That’s how it turned out after all. With our handicaps, I shot a 71 to Bruce’s 69. I lost by two stinkin’ strokes. That was with an eight on hole #5 and two sevens on holes #7 and #8.
I closed the gap considerably on the back nine. I was even on the last four holes with one birdie, one bogey, and two pars, but it wasn’t enough. Good game, Bruce. You played really well. I want to shoot in the 70’s regularly like that.