Sunday, October 9, 2011

First Post-Surgery Victory and 100th Post!

Written on 9-20-11

     It’s later now, 10:08, and we are driving through Kirtland.  We just dropped off a player who lives out here.  All three teams won, and they did it in the fastest way possible, two out of three for C and JV, and 3 out of 5 for varsity.
    I forgot to mention that Troy’s son Angelo is a gifted athlete.  Troy and Terry were both so proud of him.  As a sophomore, he is a force.  He ran through and around Piedra Vista.  He was slippery, and they could not stop him without great effort and skill.  On one play when he was on defense, the ball popped out of the hands of an opponent like a watermelon seed from someone’s mouth and right into Angelo’s hands as he was running the other way.  He ran it in for another score.  We will be hearing more about Troy’s son Angelo in the future.
    I did manage to beat Bruce somehow one time recently.  It was... the same time Dean joined us.  We chose to play escalating skins with escalating bonuses.  I don’t see where I have written about this yet, so here I go.
    We only played eleven holes, and it was on Sunday, the 28th of August.  I started out with that birdie on #1 that I wrote about earlier.  I was up $10K right away with that one, but no bonuses for either of us.
    On hole #2, Bruce won $40K with the bonus and the win.  Then he followed that up with another $30K for the win on hole #3.  We pushed with bogeys on hole #4, and Bruce took home a big chunk of change on hole #5 with the bonus and two wins on #4 and #5 for $130K.  He was killing me, so this is a big win.  The nice thing about escalating skins and bonuses is that if either of us can figure things out and play better at the end, we still have a great chance of coming back with all of the higher dollar amounts.
    #7 was my best hole.  I got the bonus for the longest drive on the fairway.  We were both on, but I had outdriven him.  Then I won the hole with a par to his bogey, and that win was good for two holes since we had pushed with pars on #6.  Even Dean had gotten a par on #6.  I won $190K on that hole.  Then I won #8 and #9 for another $170K, too, but it was not done yet.  After hole #9, the score was Bruce: $300K, Pat: $370K.  We had one big bonus on #10 still and the holes alone were worth $100K for #10 and $110K for #11.  It was anybody’s game.
    The clincher was my tee shot on hole #10.  I hit the green dead middle.  It looked like it might have gone off the back, but it was on, and it was closer than Bruce’s.  That ended up being the difference in the end.  I had won more money than he had, and he could not win enough money with what was left to catch me.  We ended up tying with pars on #10 and bogeys on #11, but that bonus was what gave me the final win.
    He beat me in stroke play since I had a 9 on hole #5, but I had won the game this time, and that was my first post-surgery victory over Bruce.  It took me a month to do it, but I did it.
    We are almost home to Aztec now.  I certainly am caught up with this journal for a while, and I am thankful for this road trip to get it done.  It’s 10:33, and we are about ten minutes from the gym, so I am shutting down.

Until next time...

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