I GET TO GOLF WHERE?!?!?!?

It was a cold winter snowy day when Kelly's dad floated the idea of taking another summer trip to all of us around the dinner table. He said he thought either Italy or California would be a fun time for everyone. Having had a blast on the trip to Ireland the previous summer, I knew we could have gone to the Holiday Inn in Lynn together and had fun for a week. In the end Mr. Winn decided he wanted to go out to California and specifically the San Fransisco area. It was one of those moments where you are truly in a dream like stupor when Mr. Winn then told us, and by us I mean me and Jake (Kel's brother) that we would be playing the famous PEBBLE BEACH! I can remember trying to pinch myself and thinking I was really dreaming. It could not be true. I had played Pebble about a million times on Tiger Woods PGA golf on PS2 and could tell you exactly what every hole looked like without missing a beat. From that winter day until the end of June I was like a kid waiting from Christmas day!

Finally the day of departure arrived. We left Logan on the way to California filled with excitement. We landed in San Fran and made our way to the rental car area. We all packed our stuff as well as ourselves into the Toyota minivan and headed off for a "2 hour" ride to Pebble Beach Resort. On the way we decided to stop for lunch in a little sea side town called Capitola, which really made the trip an adventure. As we were eating lunch overlooking the Pacific Ocean we saw what appeared to be a large plume of smoke rising up from the direction of Pebble Beach. We then heard that wild fires had started along the highway we needed to take and the road might be shut down for a while. We rushed out and tried to drive south only to get caught in major traffic and finally turned around back in the direction of Capitola. We decided to make the best of the situation and find a nice little bar on the water to sit and have a couple of beers and watch some authentic NorCal Beach volleyball. A couple of hours later we got word that they reopened the south side of the pacific coast highway and we could head towards the resort. As we drove smoke began to gt thicker and thicker and we began to see more emergency vehicles. Then as we rounded a bend in the road there were fires roaring on the opposite side of the highway no more than 100 feet from us. We took out cameras and got photos of the wildfires and of a helicopter that was dropping water on the fires below. After all the excitement we finally passed through those fires and were back on our way. There was one final obstacle in our way that would come on the doorstep of Pebble Beach complex. One more set of wildfires were blazing just outside of the famous 13 mile drive that forced us to seek an alternate route into the Pebble area. We drove around and finally found our way in.

As we pulled in we caught a glimpse of some of the holes of the famous course and I literally felt as though I had not butterflies, but large birds of prey in my stomach flapping wildly. We checked in to Pebble Beach resort and saw our rooms. They were unbelievable our room overlooked the bay and the fairway of the famous par 5 18th hole that runs in a dog leg left around the curved shoreline. All I could think about was the million times I had seen the virtual flyover in the PS2 game and how it was exactly as it looked in the game. After unpacking we got ready for a nice dinner at the restaurant overlooking the 18th green and mentally prepared ourselves for what would be an almost religious experience for any golfer. Tomorrow at about 7 we would be on the range and by 8 we would be ready to tee off on the first hole at one the meccas of golf in the states. All I could think as I fell asleep that night was please do not hit a terrible tee shot in front of the clubhouse and starter on this course. NO SLICE NO SLICE! In my next entry I will go over the stomach churning roller coaster ride that was my experience at this amazing golf paradise, and maybe a little bit about the next day at another jewel in the Pebble complex the Links at Spanish Bay! Until then Hit em long and straight and wahtever you do DO NOT SLICE!!!

Ireland the Sequel

It is not often that a sequel is better than the first...in fact I cant think of any sequels that top the first movie or book. My golf experience in Ireland however is a different story. As I said in the first post about Ireland we stumbled onto the little course had to rent old mismatched clubs. Yet still this was a great experience because it was my first golf experience in Ireland. My next time would be light night and day compared to that day. On the next trip i would have a chance to play Adare Manor, Home of the Irish Open. It all starts getting off of a plane at about 6 in the morning Ireland time...Well I should say it all starts with a most gracious and appreciative thank you to my future mother and father in law for taking me to Ireland with them on a family trip. Now back to that plane. As the group of us got off the plane early in the morning and for us more like midnight or 1 AM we were a group that looked as though we had just been a part of a combat mission. Waiting in line lying on benches and barely able to hear any of the others due to what I can only describe as my ears being so clogged that I thought someone had jammed potatoes in them. We went to the rental car booth and Kelly's dad came back and said the van was ready for use. We hopped on the shuttle to the parking lot in the misty rain towards the vehicle we would be spending loads of fun filled hours in over the next 9 days. As we pulled up it shone like a dark gray beacon in the night...THE TRANSIT it was the most beautiful box shaped van I had ever seen. Steering wheel on the right shifter on the left hand of the driver looking like Austin Powers' family van. We piled in and headed for Adare Manor, where we would spend our next 2 nights. We had a tee time for 10 that morning which for us was really 4 AM back home. We arrived at the facility to be greeted by an old...no a VERY old castle sitting beautifully on a vast expanse of green. There were so many shades of green It looked like they had gone through a packet of paint swatches and pulled out one of each sahde of green that existed and put it somehwere in the landscape. There were also beautiful flowers and shrubbery that looked as though there were people who's sole occupation was to care for each one individually. This place was like nothing I had ever seen. We unpacked the transit and headed in for breakfast before we played that day. I am a total fan of Irish breakfasts. The black and white pudding, the sausage, eggs, and hash browns its like the breakfast version of a meat lovers pizza. After breakfast we headed for the course. The rain had subsided and given way to temperatures of about 85 degrees. This never happens in Ireland it was crazy. We stepped up to the first tee. Kelly's dad said he would hit last. Jake (Kel's brother) hit first and hit his drive right down the middle. I stepped up and crushed my drive down the left hand side. Mr. Winn came up and with his lefty swing hit a little cutter from right to left down the left hand side. The starter who had been staring at us as if trying to read our mortal souls seemed to sigh in relief that we were not just American hackers here to ruin his course and slow the entire day down. Although we were all tired, we pulled it together and played pretty well..until about the 7th hole where we all decided that it might be a better option to just play 9 that day. Coming down the 9th fairway you got a photo quality shot of the castle in the background and the amazing scenery. It was then that it all hit me...I was playing golf at one of the best courses in Ireland AMAZING!!!

Golfing across the pond

Most of my early golf takes place at Hillview. I did not venture to many other places early on or try anything new because I was scared out of my mind of trying new courses. To me the idea seemed like a trip into an unmapped area of the Amazon basin. Why leave the comfy confines of what I know and I have come to love? I could shoot almost any shot on "my" course with my eyes closed. Well I guess I could do the same anywhere with similar results but with less comfort. Eventually curiosity got the best of me and I ventured out to many places around the area. Later on in life however I really had the chance to venture out...WAY out. I have golfed twice in the country of Ireland. The first time was on a little links course in the middle of nowhere. Kelly and I were driving around Ireland (in our standard car with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car and the shifter on my left hand) checking out all of the sights. We drove into a town called Lahinch and as we drove through I saw the most incredible looking golf course I had seen to date. There is a picture of the course on the left. This was a true links course with the rolling undulating fairways, long golden fescue for rough and greens that were large and appeared to be littered with craters and hills. It was amazing. We stopped and decided to stay for the night since we were close to the Cliffs of Moher anyway. I should say I begged Kelly much like my dog begs at every member of my family on pizza night. She, being gracious and amazing, decided to agree. We found out though that there was a tournament on the course and it would not be able to be played until days later. The next day we left and continued on our journey. After seeing one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen at the cliffs, we drove through the countryside to our next destination. On the way I saw a sign for a little public course and coerced Kel into playing that day. She agreed and we pulled in. The course was small but difficult and the wind was blowing around 30 or 40 miles an hour off the ocean. The clubs that we got from here were less than stellar. They actually reminded me of my first set, I could not believe someone had found and repaired that old wooden driver and somehow shipped it to Ireland. These clubs were terrible, but it was a fun day. Kel and I were partnered up with a young Irish boy who I swear was straight out of a movie. We introduced ourselves and he said "I'm Patrick...This is Proper golf weather isn't it?" in his finest Irish accent...or I guess in his case lacking our crazy American accents. Kel and I looked at each other and giggled like the first time we heard a health teacher refer to a man's or women's private bits in front of our whole class. The day went as good as could be asked with those sets of clubs. The scenery was amazing and the company was hilariously Irish. All in all we had a blast. Next time I will tell you about the second time playing in the Emerald Isle. Until then hit em long and straight...unless you are playing a dogleg!

Sharing the addiction

I have written a ton about the beginnings of my addiction and relationship to golf. Now its time to start touching on some of the other areas of golf and some stories that are more present. I recently got engaged and could not be any happier...Well I could be happier if I could convince Kelly to enjoy golf and want to golf with me a lot. As it is she will golf with me when we are down in Cape Cod but in Kelly's words "ONLY THE PAR 3 courses". She claims to be terrible at golf and this is one of the reasons she won't go. Let me tell you a little story about the last time we went to the Par 3 near the cape house. The course is a nicely maintained par 3 called Twin Brooks golf course only about a mile away. After debating for a while about going she decided to come along semi happily. The day was insanely windy...I mean St. Andrews windy! We get to the first hole and I go to the left...Kelly goes to the middle. First round of the season luck she tells me and before she finishes getting it out of her mouth I am sounding some sort of fart imitation noise as if to shun her comment. Needless to say she is 1 over after 4...SHE PARRED 3 of the first 4 holes. In all fairness she has been doing a ton of the 30 day shred workout plan...you know the one from the biggest loser, so she claims that's why she is hitting the ball better... I think she has almost always hit the ball well. I mean she is an amateur golfer like the rest of us so she will have good days and bad but she is a good golfer. If only I can convince her and maybe she will like to golf more and eventually I won't have to drag her caveman style to the golf course anymore. Hey a man can dream can't he? Don't answer that it was rhetorical!

New Clubs

After some time with my old...OLD clubs, I started havng some problems, well I should say I continued having problems now they were different. Besides my obvious swing hitches, or I should say lack of anything resembling a real golf swing, the equiment that was already broken down really started breaking down. The clubs literally began to break when I made contact. Maybe this was due to the increase in said contact or maybe after a thousand years buried and then unearthed by a golf archeaologist and played by a 12/13 year old they finally tapped out. I was teeing off on the first at Hillview my "home" course and I noticed what appeared to be shrapnel leaving the wooden driver upon collision. I looked down at the club and noticed that what used to be the flat face of my club now resembled a topographical map of the himalayas. There were jagged edges and splinters everywhere and the little metal striker plate that used to be there had apparently been sacrificed to the golf gods, because it was nowhere to be found. So I figured this would be the last day with these clubs. Later that week I noticed an ad in the paper for "Golf Sale" at building 19 1/2. I thought to myself, man what does this store not have. You can go in buy a quart of oil, a carpet runner, a can of cashews, a 3 pack of underwear and a combo back scratcher/massage tool. Now they have golf clubs, this is awesome! I asked my dad if we could go look and he agreed to take me and my borhters down to look. It was like nothing I had ever seen I could grab irons one at a time from the giant racks and make a whole set. I, of course, knew next to nothing about golf clubs and just started grabbing every number and letter I could find. It is wierd I thought that ther can be numbers like 3,4,and 5 and then some random numbers lik 56 and 60. Then I saw all sorts of letters, P, which I did know was a pitching wedge, then there was an S, an L, a G, and an A. I had not even gotten to the woods yet. My father being a complete novice in the sport as well told me he knew a little about which clubs you needed. He said I should have numbers 3 through 9 and definitely a P wedge. He also said I needed a 1 and 3 wood. I then promptly grabbed one of each of these clubs. I didnt get the brand names. No, I got the ones with the cool names and pictures on them. OOOOOO "Power Driver" that sounds good, "Super Spin Wedge" also very nice, and I then saw ones that read "tour edition" I figured hey if its good enough for the late great Payne Stewart, they are good enough for me. Of course I was wrong on so many levels. For a long time I wondered why some of my irons were so hard to hit and always felt funny. It turns out that those were called tour edition because they were blade irons, which should only be used by people who are pretty much scratch golfers. Thank god I only bought 2 irons with that label. They were the 3 iron and 5 iron. Lets just say I didn't use those much! After finding an assortment of different clubs all with great names like "powershot" and some that had ferocious looking animals on them we went to find bags for each of us. Well we all bought the exact same army green carry bags that when empty probably weighed the same as a dump truck full of lead. Man you could see our foursome coming from a mile away...well I guess really you couldn't because our bags blended in to the course, making us look like the Army rangers of the golf world. Needless to say these clubs were a serious step up from the old guys but they were a long way away from great. The funny thing is, I am still drawn to the cool names. I buy nike "MOJO" balls, and I own a hybrid club with the moniker "Wizard". I guess you can take the club scrounging kid out of Building 19 but you cant take the I want cool names on my clubs out of the kid.

"That Guy"

Looking back on the first time I ever golfed on a course I have to sit back and laugh at myself. I can only imagine what any of the other golfers were thinking seeing me ramble up to the tee with my, i'll call them retro for lack of a better word, clubs. Now at 28 years old and about 16 years having passed since that time, I realize that seeing someone like me then was pretty much the equivalent of driving on the highway being stuck behind the 1978 Cadillac sedan deville with the honk if Jesus loves you bumper sticker driving at a crisp 46 miles per hour. You know there isnt much you can do to get around them but you still slam the wheel and shout curse words for all the world to hear. All the time knowing right now you cannot honk because Jesus definitely does not love you. I know I was "that guy" you all know him or her the one who holds the entire course up turning every tee box into a virtual line for a new hot disney theme park ride. There should have been someone following me with a few monitors showing the approximate wait time until you can tee off and maybe a few of those really uncomfortable benches that the registry of motor vehicles seems to own stock in. I could have looked behind me at any given moment to see a golf edition of Where's Waldo. In all fairness though at that time I did not know any better, I was an egocentric twelve year old who was trying to golf for the first time. Now there are days when I go golfing and see that kid with his set of clubs that were hand me downs from a bygone era in the sport and I cringe. I watch him swing away over and over again barely if ever making contact and my heart drops thinking I cannot believe I have to golf behind this kid. The truth is I should have more compassion, as most of us that play the sport should because at one time we were all similar to these kids. Unfortunately these kids now screw up our rhythm and mess our games all up so we cannot see past that. In the end most of them will go on to be like me a streaky golfer who can go out one day and play the round of my life hitting somewhere in the mid to high 80s and the next day go out and hit a cool 120 for no good reason. The point is with time those who stick to the game will get better, not to say that they will ever be great because aside from the top 10 golfers in the world I don't know if any golfer is truly great all the time. These golfers however will be a lot like most of us in time and they will in turn look back and laugh at themselves, hopefully. In the end I can only imagine the pain and heartache that I brought on all who saw me walk on that course that day, but I will always remember that day for what it was for me and that is the beginning of a beautiful friendship with a game that is not like any other. This game is both relaxing and over the top stressful all at once and that is why I love it. Golf can be a lot of things, but I have said it before and I will say it again that one good shot will keep you coming back for more every time!