Tee Time

You are probably aware that there is a major sporting event in my town this week. I must admit that I didn't particularly care about it other than to be bothered by the increased traffic and possibly losing my husband to it for the weekend. That was before Thursday morning when Kevin received a call from one of our church members offering us 4 VIP tickets for the day. I decided to seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and went with Kevin and one of the other pastors and his wife. I hesitated for a moment in accepting because attending would mean I would miss Zachary getting off the bus and coming home from his first day of school. The temptation to see Tiger quickly overrode that thought.

If you haven't been to a PGA tournament before, VIP is the only way to go. We were picked up in the company's parking lot, given a personal shuttle ride to our corporate entrance, and had to walk just a few feet to the air conditioned "chalet" where all-you-could-stuff food and drink awaited us. We were distracted from our cool-air-seeking journey almost immediately after walking in the gate by someone saying, "Here comes Tiger!". We thought we had missed our opportunity to see him since we got to the course later than we had planned, and anxiously rushed to the fairway of hole 7 as he was walking to the green. Unfortunately for Tiger, there was a sand bunker about 3 feet from the cup and his ball was in it. He finished with par, but I think he more than made up for it during yesterday's round. Kevin will be there on Sunday to watch the final round so watch for him on TV.

Later we decided we were going to follow Phil Mickelson from hole 1 back to 7 where our chalet was located. We made it to hole 2. The sun was so intense, I had flip-flop tan lines after just 10 minutes. After that, sitting on the shaded deck of our chalet with a constant supply of water bottles and gatorade was the best way to watch the rest of the round. I saw the majority of the notable golfers I'm familiar with and quite a few I had never heard of as they rotated through our vantage spot.

I love trying things for the first time and try to take in as much as I can about the experience, especially when the probability of me ever doing it again is unlikely, as was the case on Thursday. I decided I would probably never learn to play golf since playing in the early morning would be the only way to escape the heat and I don't do early morning unless absolutely necessary. I also didn't realize that companies would spend close to a million dollars entertaining their clients for a week at the PGA. One company VP told us he had taken clients out to dinner the night before and the bill was $4000! You could send a kid to college for a semester for that kind of money. (Okay, not to Harvard but a state school perhaps.)

Now for my observations that may embarrass some of you and possibly my children: this is the only time in my life that I have seen a line for the men's bathroom but not the women's! Odd that I would notice such a thing, but it just struck me as humorous that I have never seen that dynamic before in all my experiences. Not even at other sporting events. Another advantage of our VIP status was the access to the VIP bathrooms which were in essence very fancy porta-potties featuring wood floors, granite-looking walls, panelled wood doors and potpourri. They even smelled good! Obviously, I need to get out more if I'm impressed by the bathrooms at the PGA.

Sorry there aren't any pictures to share since cameras weren't allowed, and Uncle Weave: please forgive us!