I Keep Trying to Include Eric, But...

Written on 11-9-19.

     I am in our computer room on a Sunday afternoon.  B went to Kelly’s school to help her move to another classroom (not sure why she has to move), and Danielle is reluctantly facing her bedroom.  She plans to go through everything in a Konmari Method kind of way to declutter and basically clean things up.  She watched the movie Yesterday with me, and that helped her procrastinate…until now.  Because of that movie, I am listening to Beatles Radio on Pandora.

On to golf…

     I’ve played golf twice recently, and both times, we had a blast.  I attempted to include Eric, too, but both times he couldn’t play.  He said he could play, and then something came up.  We wanted to play our usual fall round at Hillcrest and go out to Cuckoo’s after, so I set it up for a Sunday afternoon with great weather predicted, but he couldn’t play because Kyle was in town.  A very legitimate reason.  I called Mike (last name) to take his place, which he did.  More on that round coming up.

     Then Bruce and C.J. wanted to play Hidden Valley again for some reason (to support local or to reminisce?), so I set up a day to play there on another super weather day, considering it’s November.  I invited Eric again, but he called me in the morning to let me know he couldn’t play, but he might join us on the back nine.  

     This time, the police were with him...
at his Cat5 property, and they were dealing with the guy who had not yet signed a lease, but he and some other mysterious people were setting up an illegal marijuana dispensary?  As it turns out, it happened to be the biggest marijuana bust in Aztec.  Another very legitimate reason, so the three of us played without him.  I’ll keep trying to include him, though.

     We played Hillcrest without Eric, even though he is the reason we typically set it up, and it was a fantastic match, coming down to the last hole.  It was Mike and I taking on the mostly undefeated Bruce and C.J. again.

Here’s a hole by hole breakdown…

Hole 1: Mike and I struggled mightily.  C.J. and Bruce didn’t, both earning pars.  We were one down.  Not the fantastic start we had hoped for.

Hole 2: We recovered on this hole, earning bogeys.  Bruce and C.J. lost their great start with bigger numbers.  We were even.

Hole 3: Bruce earned a birdie with a great pitch to a couple of feet.  The cart lady motioned wildly, and I thought it was because she was upset because one of us had hit a wild approach towards her, but she was just thrilled with Bruce’s shot.  We were one down again.

Hole 4: I finally got good contact with an iron after another long drive, but my golf ball hit a large leaf on my third shot, slowing its descent towards the hole, so I ended up with a bogey.  So did Mike and C.J., so we stayed one down.

Hole 5: I got the only par with a nifty chip from just off the green and a short, but tricky putt, so we were back to even.  Yeah, my first par of the round!

Hole 6: Bruce shot right back with his second birdie of the round, so we were right back to one down again.  Bruce had not played for a long time, but he was in exceptional form today.  Two birdies already.

Hole 7, 8, and 9:  We managed to stay two down after these three holes.  Nothing really exciting to write about.  Hole #9 was moved up to around 100 yards due to the other teeing grounds being covered in the shade, which I think caused the ground to remain frozen most of the time.  We all got pars except Bruce, who had a putting malfunction.

To be concluded in the next post...