I remember following my dad and grandpa around Penn Terra GC as a young lad. Dad would let me hit my own ball, but would often pick it up and take it to where his ball was. He HATED slow play. He would get aggravated with his golf league partner for the last decade or so because he would clean his club after a shot before putting it back in his bag. Dad thought this took too much time. Patience was not one of his virtues.

After retiring from GM in his early 50s, dad worked and played golf at Beechwood GC in Arcanum, OH almost exclusively. He was already retired at the age I am now. He also worked at the local hardware store in the winter. As I already mentioned, he played the game the way he thought it should be played.

The last time I played with dad, my son was playing with us. Dad’s eyes were getting pretty bad. He would hit one down the middle of the fairway and think it was a bad shot. He would be pleasantly surprised when we showed him where his ball ended up. You can still enjoy a good shot even when you can’t see it I guess.

My mom tasked me with going through his golf stuff. He had an old golf bag full of every club he ever owned up in their attic. It also had ancient golf balls in it. Memories came rushing back when I saw his old McGregor woods and irons, the clubs I used to take over to our community park during summer break and spent hours hitting balls back and forth. This is where I learned bad habits that inflict my swing to this very day. I loved it though. I don’t like to keep things for the sake of keeping things, but I just may need to hang on to these. Also in dad’s golf stash, I also found dozens of ball markers and probably 200 tees. In even found 2 metal golden tees. I doubt they’re real gold, I will keep one and give my son the other. Fools gold. In dad’s golf bag were his old Ping Zing 1 and 3 woods. He played these for many years. I think I will need to hang on to these as well.

Golf is full of memories. If you still have your dad, uncle, best friend from high school or work that you played with over the years, take whatever opportunity you can find to play with them when it warms back up. You never know. It might be the last time. 

They flew me to Jacksonville on 12/10 where I am met with a guy holding a sign who loaded my clubs into a black SUV and drove me to the resort. My friend, Billy, has gotten me on many very nice courses over the years like Oakland Hills and Valhalla. I was able to invite a +1, so I was happy to be able to be able to reciprocate. 

After checking in and having some hors d’oeuvres, we headed over to the course to soak it in and do some putting on the practice green. It’s been a while since I played Bermuda, so it took some time to get a feel for the grain again. They were much slower than I expected for a championship course, but I’m sure they are much faster for the tournament. Q School was going on there at the same time, so we got to see some of the players trying to get their tour card. That was pretty cool!

The next morning, we headed to the course bright and early for breakfast, drinks and some time on the practice facilities. We were then treated to a short game clinic with Trevor Immelman and Kira Dixon. They are both awesome people. Trevor walked up straight from the car and pitches one to a few feet without any warmup. Show off! 😃

Now for the golf part. As many of you know, I’ve been battling a bad knee since an accident at work about 5 years ago, so I don’t play much anymore. I was hopeful since the week prior, I had a gel injection that supposedly works better than the steroids. No such luck. I wasn’t able to finish several holes, and I was in so much pain, I was almost in tears. I battled through though.

I shot a 92, but don’t get too excited. This was a shamble format with a double bogey max on each hole. I estimate I would have been over 120 had I played my own ball. One of the guys in the other foursome had to have a sore back at the end of the day from carrying us. I did crush one on #10 that our caddy said was in the “Pro Zone”. He got a good tip just for saying that. I give some credit to the “Sawgrass Splash” drink they served us at the turn. Unfortunately I pushed my second into the junk and ended up taking a legit double. 

When we get to 13, there stands Trevor on the tee. We got to chat a bit while waiting on the group ahead of us to putt out. It turns out he lived pretty close to me when I lived in Winter Park, FL, but I’m sure his house was quite a bit bigger than the one I was renting. I hit my shot a bit thin, but it ended up pin high on the right fringe. He hit a shot for our group, and it was an out 10’ short and downhill. I liked my putt from the fringe, but the others wanted to play from his shot. Nobody made it. 

We started on #3, so thankfully we were good and warmed up by the time we got to 17. This was the hole I really wanted to conquer. Several people from the GM Rewards Program that we met were standing there watching. The others seemed nervous, but I like a crowd. I stepped up and hit one to about 12’ left the birdie putt a tad short. I was happy with a tap in par. Billy put his into the pond, so I claim a major victory.

We finished the last 3 holes after that which I finished with 3 bogeys. I was grinning from ear to ear even though I was in misery. This is certainly one for the memory books, and one that I plan to return to in 5-6 after they will do a knee replacement. I would have loved to play this course 10-15 years ago.

It was a charity scramble to support a scholarship fund and to bring awareness to addiction and mental health issues. About $10K was raised, and a good time was had by all. This was a great way to ease back in since I didn't always have to deal with my mess.

The first few holes were pretty shaky off the tee. The first tee shot was a double cross into a field. After some not so stellar shots from my teammates, we were left with 200+ to the green on a par 4. We were in deep trouble after some other dribblers by the team, but fortunately I hit a decent 3w pin high to the right. My short game was pretty rough for the first nine holes, so we ended up with a bogey. Pretty soon I was nailing the driver down the middle with rock hard fairways leaving us with a lot of shots inside of 100. We started on 16, and when we turned to 1, I drove to 10 yards short of the green. We finally got a birdie! I do have to admit that I paid the donation to move up a tee box. It was only a 10-20 yard difference on most holes though. I even drove the green on a par 4 after donating to tee up from the red tees. I'll take it though. I think I was most happy with my short and mid irons. I had a lot of shots that were pin high GIRs. I would rather not discuss my putting. The greens were VERY shaggy, so I'm blaming it on that.

It was nice to be back out there, and most importantly, the knee feels fine today!

So far today, we’ve walked about 3 miles on the beach and picked up a bunch of trash.

Why would we walk the beaches picking up trash on our vacation? I can’t stand to see task on the beach. The beer cans can be deadly to sea life too. It also gives me much needed exercise. I am also not thinking about servers or code. 

I would love to post a link to my round on Game Golf, but my unit would not stay on. I made sure it was charged before I left, so I guess another unit is now a paperweight. Too bad, because I would love to see how far some of my drives were. I was driving the ball so nice today. My irons, short game, and putting were awful. Despite all that, it was a great day.

I need figure out how to start hunting pool noodles. Maybe I should buy some and start shooting them with my pellet gun to develop the killer instinct. Maybe I am just being silly.

Jack Nicklaus played in the Ohio Open Championship at Madden in 1958. He didn’t win, and I wonder if Madden’s fate would be different if he had. Kittyhawk is home to Dayton Golf Hall of Fame. Hopefully they move it to Community GC. There are also many monuments to late golfers at Kittyhawk. There are 72 golf holes in our city that will no longer be played. Many people from our area learned to play at Kittyhawk’s Falcon (formerly Kitty) course. That’s where I took my kids when they were young. 

There is a significant piece of Dayton history that is dying. It is unknown what will happen to the land. There are thousands of golfers that need to find new homes. I imagine neighboring courses will benefit from this, but this is a significant loss to our city. 

Uncle Don passed away yesterday. He was one of the calmest, coolest people I have ever know. I have never seen him get upset over anything. When he would hit a bad shot, which wasn't too often, he would simply say, "Hmmmm." and play his next shot. What I wouldn't give for another round at that goat track (now closed permanently) with those guys. I imagine he has already played a round or two with my grandpa on the great golf course in the sky.

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View this round on GAME GOLF

My wife and I took a long weekend in Gatlinburg, TN. Here are a few highlight photos from the trip. I did not take my clubs, but I would love to take another trip down there with them and play some of their courses.

Unfortunately, it was not such a nice trip home due to a road closure on I-75N.

I am amazed at how well I scored giving how bad my tee shots were. Hopefully this means that my short game is coming around.

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View this round on GAME GOLF

I drove through the war zone like area to make sure that everything was OK at work since we had 3rd shift people there. Our servers shut down nicely, but our firewall was throwing hard drive errors and needed to be replaced. Our Internet connections are down and look to be for a few more days as they repair massive damage to power poles. Where the tornado crossed the road less than a mile north of work, they were using snow plows to clear debris. Guard rails were twisted up like flimsy metal,. Trees and buildings were leveled. My former employer who is just up the road sustained no damage even though their neighbors buildings are almost rubble. Heavy equipment was upside down. Work is still without power and likely will be for a few more days. We rented a large generator trailer and are able to process parts for our customers, but our IT infrastructure is struggling as am I with lack of sleep. 

In the midst of all this, I thought my home course, Kittyhawk, would be in horrible shape, but the larger tornado missed it by a half mile to the south while the other missed it by a quarter mile or so to the north. Other than having no power or water, they were open for business Tuesday evening, so I went out for golf league. You can see the [rotten] fruit of that effort on my Game Golf. The greens were exceptionally slow given the lack of maintenance, but that is quite understandable. The president of our golf league says that he is not going to count the round because of the conditions. I'm calling BS since the course was open with no pending weather that day. We have played in monsoon rain before because the course was open. The other leagues were playing and there was one other person from our league there as well. That is 2 out of the six of us. Thoughts on this?

This Memorial Day will be quite memorable, but unfortunately not what it is supposed to be memorable for.

Now to the golf part. Rain and storms every night have limited golf to Tuesday night golf league. It was cloudy and brisk out, but I sucked it up and played. I started tagging my round with my new GG Live only to find out that I started the wrong course. I tried to start a new round, but soon gave up. I'll try again on the next round. I'm used to my old device that I just turned on and started tagging. I have to remember to start my round on my phone before the first tee. The round was a roller coaster. Good hole. Bad hole. Two good holes, Three awful holes. Then finished par - bogey. We were stuck behind a painfully slow 4-some that had no clue how to play ready golf. 2.5 hours for 9 is not my idea of a good time. I am still waiting to win the lottery so I can afford a decent club...

I am about to start a 4 day weekend. The weather does not look great, but hopefully I can get some golf in. Lord knows I need the exercise.

With that being said, I bought a membership to the city courses after playing only a handful of times last year. It's taking a while to shake the dust off, but it's slowly coming around.

I am quickly coming to the conclusion that most public courses in Florida are pieces of sh**. So far, Eagle Creek, which I played with a bunch of TST members in December, is the best. It's further than I want to drive on a regular basis though. I have others to try, but I am less than impressed so far.

One of the things that made this tournament interesting was to see LPGA stars playing the same course and tees as PGA players and amateurs. I stood on the tee of #12 while some of the big hitters like Lexi Thompson and John Daly teed off. I've witnessed Dustin Johnson and other PGA pros unload on par 5s too, and I can definitely say there is a difference. It's also different to see how a pro plays a hole vs. the celebrity. I saw several of the better celebs hit into the 15th green with close shots, but they were past the hole leaving a downhill slider. Nobody made it. Compare that to the wile old pro Ian Woosnam who played one to short of the green and bumped it uphill to a foot past and tapped in. One of the pros landed the ball on right side of the hole where it kicked left and trickled right over to the hole and made the birdie. I think you can do this when you have better control over where your ball goes.

It was a fun event that I hope to return to next year. I am actually entered for an opportunity to play in this next year. I'm not holding my breath, but how cool would it be to share my experience between the ropes. Who knows. Maybe I can Git R Done with Larry.

There seem to be at least 1 or 2 of these events in every round that are completely senseless mistakes that cost a stroke or 2. I don’t chalk it off to carelessness because I went through my routine. It’s almost like there is a momentary disconnect between my mind a body. So am I the only one that has the moments of cranial diversion? How can these situations be avoided?