Out on The Farm

I decided that after a summer of honing my golf skills, that I was ready to take on The Farm. The Farm is where my brother Ryan has a complimentary membership on behalf of some generous church members. This is a competition ready, championship golf course.

Now Ryan had warned me that it can be...well...demoralizing. He said the rough is brutal. You lose your balls, you can't hardly hit it out, etc. This is a tough challenge. No problem I told him. I'm hitting the ball really well, there shouldn't be any reason why I'm hitting out of the rough. Right.

I show up to his house the night before and the next morning we drive into the course. Its beautiful. The houses surrounding the golf course are beautiful. Its clear where the carpet execs spend their time and money. We arrive at 8 am and we're the first out. Just to give you some indication of the kind of course this is: we were going to walk the course (big mistake) and they had already grabbed our bags from our car and put it on a cart, so basically everybody hops in a cart and drives it 30 yards to the driving range to warm up and then ditches it! As Ryan described it the ultimate in laziness.

We warmed up sufficiently or so we thought and launched out. This course is just beautiful. Its nestled among some small mountains and hills (did I mention we were walking!) First drive I hit, is perfect out in the fairway. Should have stopped right there. I managed to finish that hole in good shape, but oh how it changed from there. On the second hole God must have decided that my pride was out of check. He reached down and grabbed my golf club on the backswing and forced my ball into the rough. And there we go.

I feel like the rest of the day was spent hacking and chopping my way around the course. I would admire the landscape, the beautifully manicured creeks and waterfalls and then watch my shot disappear into them. Very depressing. We manage to make it through the first nine holes and walk to the halfway house. There I discover a new concept. The equivalent of the honor system. Its an unmanned snack shop. You take what you want. Gatorade, candy bars, snacks, crackers. Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. I guess when you pay that kind of membership fee, the club can give you gatorade out on the course.

So we're re-energized and ready to rock on the back nine. I guess my pride was still out of check because God kept grabbing my golfclub and causing it to do unnatural things. Other than a beautiful shot on a par 3, it was not an ideal back nine either. It was so exhausting we actually teamed up to play best ball golf on the last three holes to try to beat the course. Couldn't do it. Par on 16, and not 17 or 18.

In the end, it was beautiful, really great to spend time with my brother, and now I know what to work on before I go back again. Oh yeah, the next time we're riding.

Stacey update: She is finishing up her general ward rotation, working 80 hours a week, and starts oncology next week for a month. We're making the most of our hour or so together at night:)