The SJO at Pinehurst

For the last two years I have hooked up with a group of guys to play in the SJO (Slim Jim open) golf tournament at Pinehurst. They have been putting this trip together for about 20 years now. My invite came from Mark Reid (one of our neighbors) who has been going for 6-8 years.

We played a round on Friday at Tobacco Road in Carthage. This is without a doubt the most bizarre course I have ever played. One golf magazine ranked it as the 10th hardest in the US. Lots of the shots were blind, onto fairways or greens you couldn't see because of huge elevation changes and giant hills/cliffs. Wish I had some pictures.

This picture is the #1 tee box at Little River. We played two rounds there on Saturday. Very long course, but quite civil.



This was our foursome for both rounds Saturday. Front left to right, me, Bob Anderson, Mark Kangas, and Mark Reid. I hope we were standing on a hill because if not, either Mark Reid is about 6'6" or I am about 5'6".



We stayed at Little River in nice two bedroom condos. They each have a decent little kitchen and living room.



The doors to the five condos we had were open most of the time and people just wander up and down the hall being social. Sitting over in the corner is Joe Kimosh, the organizer of the SJO.



This is almost everyone getting ready for our last round. We played Sunday at Talamore in Pinehurst. I think this was the easiest course, but you couldn't tell from my score.



One of the ones missing in the group photo was Jody. After drinking a wee bit the night before, he found a nice comfortable place to get some shut eye.



And finally, at the end. In the Talamore parking lot they calculated scores and figured out the winners. The big smile on the guy with the blue shirt (Don) is because he won on Friday, Saturday, and the total. He tried very hard on Sunday to blow a 16 shot lead but managed to hang on and win by two.



But the real winner and SJO Champion was Mark Reid. Here he is donning the red velvet coat and then getting his 3 foot tall trophy. You win this honor by having the worst scores for the weekend. Both the coat and trophy are appropriately ugly.



The real luck in the weekend was the weather. Friday was gorgeous and around 80. Saturday was nice until the end. We finished our 36th hole and within 15 minutes it started pouring. It probably dumped 2+ inches of rain. On Sunday we had finished golfing and were awarding Mark the last of the awards when the skies opened again. The only person who might not agree was Todd, who left the sun roof to his car open during Saturday's downpour. Oops.