Written on 7-27-18.
I am sitting in a cabana at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya, and this is our last full day here. I am hot and sweaty. It’s been muy caliente and humid every single day here, and that humidity really adds to the heat, making 87º feel more like 95º.
I am not complaining. We are in paradise here, and reality is going to hit hard when we head back home tomorrow. I have my Time to Teach training at SAMS Academy on Monday afternoon. Eric and Amanda are staying another day, because we missed a day in the beginning due to mechanical problems on a United flight.
Gotta go! Off to play at the Hard Rock Riviera May Golf Course. Will write about that later.
Written on 7-28-18.
Time flies, and so does the plane that B and I are on right now. We are headed back home. Yesterday’s golf round went very quickly, too, and it was marked with a few great holes, plenty of lousy holes and lost golf balls, and some interesting native animals, too. The course was gorgeous, lush, green, and wild. Eric chose the skins game, and that was appropriate; I was happy he did not choose stroke play, because he and I both had some blow-up holes. Any wayward golf ball was...
swallowed by the dense jungle that lined every fairway on both sides, never to be seen again. We looked, but we did not find a single ball that flew into the wilderness. Our golf balls went down like the bad guys in the movie The Magnificent Seven. Eric stopped to buy four more at the turn, and they were gone by the 18th hole, if not before. He ended up finishing his round with one red ball and one neon pink one he had found randomly on the course. I started with plenty, but finished with only three. It wasn’t until the back nine that we discovered red stakes that lined some of the holes along the jungle borders, so that might have made a difference. Oh well. That’s golf.
Eric won. It came down to the 17th hole. I had to win the bonus of being closest to the hole on that par three, and I got that done, but I failed to get my first putt close enough to earn par and extend the match to the 18th hole. I gave him six pops per side, and that made it very competitive. He would play conservatively with his rented 5-iron, and I would use my driver more than I should have. Mostly, the person who kept his ball in play would end up winning the hole.
I was extremely frustrated at times during this round. I have worked hard this summer to be more consistent, but this course exposed any and all remaining flaws. I’ve bought new irons, gone to two different ranges to figure them out, and practiced at Civitan, too. I know it was an incredibly tough challenge with the required accuracy and the small greens there, but why does golf continue to remain so difficult sometimes? I need to practice more.
Of course, it wasn’t all bad. I did play some holes really well, but the bad holes really stood out, and they are continuing to bother me today. Looking back, I should have left my driver in the bag on every hole, except two or three. On one hole, it was the driver that caused my higher score, not any bad swings. Lesson learned.
Enough for now. I am so disgusted with golf right now, I don’t even want to write about it. Now, that’s really bad.
Until next time…
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