NotTheRock Musings

Yes, so that was the most golf I've ever played in a week. And you know, the theory that you have to play a lot in order to get better was tested and I have to say I agree with it. While my hands were getting raw (insert masturbation joke here) by the end of it, I definitely was hitting the ball more consistently and working out some of the kinks. I even shot a 44 on the front nine of my dad's course on Saturday which is by FAR the best I've ever done there.

The reason for all this was that I played in an invitational event at my father's club this past weekend where we played against other teams in our "flight" of six teams. This meant five, 9-hole matches. So we did a practice round on Thursday (18 holes), then three 9-hole matches on Friday (27 holes) and two more 9-hole matches on Saturday (18 holes). Plus, I played 18 with some buddies on Sunday before leaving NJ. Oh, and I had played 36 the weekend prior to this on my course in order to stay sharp. So that's 99 holes in about a week. Not sure if I'll ever duplicate that.

I even walked 45 of them on the weekend... 18 in the Thursday practice round, 9 on Friday and all 18 on Saturday. I expected to be ready to collapse or to be sore as can be... but aside from some normal stiffness in the ol' back and legs, I felt great. Going out and playing another 18 on Sunday -- and playing well -- only made me wish I could do this every week.

After the event at my pop's club, there is a raffle for some really nice prizes. And I never win raffles of anything. Well, I'm in the locker room after my shower and I can hear over the PA the names being pulled and there's my name as the winner of a driver. Holy crap. My dad and I had already won some cash and a crystal bowl for finishing second overall in our flight and now I had a new, $500 driver! And five minutes later, as they're pulling names for 3-woods.... it's me again! Now I'm up to about $700 worth of equipment.

I also bet on a guy (there's a fair amount of semi-illegal betting going on) to win his flight because I knew and liked him and almost nobody else did.... so I won $166 on a $10 bet. I also took home four golf shirts, a hat and a wind jacket, all as prizes, raffles or gift bag items.

All in all, a terrific golf-related week. I guess I'll keep playing.

Labels: golf, prizes, raffles

You know, when I used to live in the Northeast, I used to make fun of the way people freaked out about snow there. It never made sense to me -- it snows plenty, so why is it always a panic-inducing event?

Well, it's gotten sillier. Here in Texas, when there's a chance it's going to rain hard, they freak out similarly. Right now there's yet another storm in the gulf (and yeah, the overhead highway signs this morning said "STORM FORMING IN GULF") and I thought, okay, big deal, it's barely a tropical storm. On the Today show, Al Roker showed a map and explained it's heading towards the Louisiana/Texas border. That's like 3 or 4 hours from here. Then they throw it to the local weather and our local clown -- err, weatherman -- shows it tracking, yep, you guessed it, right at Houston! Everybody panic! It's going to raaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiinnn!

Seriously, I know hurricanes and tropical storms are nothing to laugh about -- well, except when they're funny -- but come on. Everyone here is still guyshy because of Katrina -- which didn't impact Houston at all (save for the thousands of people who moved to the Astrodome for a while) and then the following storm, Rita, which began the over-excessive panicking. When Rita was on her way, everybody fled and it was one of things where people were running out of gas on the highways and it took 13 hours to get across town, etc.

So why don't we settle down a bit? Is Houston that afraid of being like New Orleans was? I guess the answer is yes, because our office is talking about closing early so people can go home and "prepare."

Oh, and the storm is expected to get here at about 7 AM tomorrow morning. So, yes, by all means, we should head home early today to batton down the hatches!

Labels: everything's bigger in Texas, Houston, raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain, tropical storms, weather