Golfing in Myrtle Beach - 2011

This is something like our 26th year of golfing together at Myrtle Beach. Of course, to get there meant a plane ride from Utah. I flew American through Chicago, and then seamlessly on to Raleigh. Or so it appeared. Our plane had about 100 military guys deploying to somewhere. When they started unloaded the baggage, each one of them had a backpack and a duffel bag. It was nice to see that they unloaded the military baggage first, until I realized that they weren't going to unload anything else. Over one hundred people were left with no baggage, and of course, no word from American on the situation. My luggage arrived on the next flight and was delivered to my dad's house somewhere between 2:00 and 5:00 in the morning. Good enough.

Once down in Myrtle Beach, we were playing a round at each of the four Big Cat courses, just north of Callabash. Here is the gang, from left to right: Dave Allred, Jason Shive, Lewis Petree, John Steigerwald, Darrell Baber, Jim Saunders, and Mark Reid.



We got lucky on the first day. It was supposed to rain on us late in the day. While it was quite cool, the rain held off until later in the evening. Friday and Saturday were nice but windy. Sunday was drop dead gorgeous.

We always have to handicap our competitions. No matter who else is doing well, Darrell (my old roommate and best man) always seems to smoke us. I am just happy to have progressed from "the absolute worst" to "one of the worst".



On Saturday, we played the young guys versus the old guys. Because most of us went to college at the same time, we are almost all either just past fifty, or about to meet it. Surprisingly enough, the last putt, on the last hole, made it a tie. We have never had a tie on our dinner bet.

When you are playing at the beach, you are always fighting the wind and the water (which is everywhere when the course is 3 feet above sea level). Other times, you manage to find the one terrible place to land your ball. We were playing Best Ball, so our team got to snuggle up against one tree and try not to hit the other.



Some of the guys weren't drinking. Most everyone had a few beers. Dave and I were big fans of Captain Morgan and Coke. Here we have Dave in the standard Captain pose.

Except.... did you notice what was under Dave's foot?



Here is a closer view. It is not uncommon to see alligators on the courses, but this one was quite large. Notice the ball near his tail. I guess the sissy golfer decided not to go get it. The bad news is that he was just off the green.



In addition to our normal good time, I actually mixed in some good golf. On Friday morning, I played the best 8 holes I have played. That gave me 10 more to screw it up. On Sunday, I managed to putt better than I ever have. Perhaps it could be a good omen for improvement this summer.

.... and just to be balanced with my flights out, American canceled my flight from Chicago to Salt Lake, so I have a layover of over 6 hours. Even though flights have gotten more expensive, the airlines haven't sacrificed their shitty, unreliable service.