It was a good holiday weekend for the family and I.
It started with, as I mentioned in my Friday Vid post, 36 holes of pitch and putt golf. Later I met our friends the B’s from KC, along with Mrs. Coach Hebs, for lunch at a spot I had never been to before. Friday night we watched Coach Hebs’ team win their home opener in a rout over the team Cathedral beat in week one.
Saturday was supposed to be our second cross country week of the season. C’s team decided not to run in the CYO race, I’m assuming because of the holiday and people being gone. M was still supposed to run about an hour east of Indy. She and S left just as some rain was moving in near our house. In the time it took them to get to the host school, the storm had blossomed and featured heavy rain and lots of lightning. They hung out at a McDonald’s near the course while the meet was delayed for 45 minutes before the coaches decided to cancel it. I think S was thrilled to drive that far for nothing.
The rest of Saturday was pretty lazy. I followed the KU game online,1 napped, yelled at the girls a little. A pretty standard Saturday. That evening we went out the with B’s and Hebs, starting at another place I had not been to before. Two new places in one weekend! We need more guests from Kansas City because they seem to force us out of our old, reliable spots.
Sunday was supposed to be pool party day. And it was, just delayed slightly because of persistent rain in the late morning and early afternoon. Eventually the clouds cleared and it was a beautiful day with a hint of fall in the air. Plenty of beer, good food, and good times with friends.
Monday morning Billy B and his oldest daughter joined L and I on the pitch and putt course for about 14 holes. The girls kind of checked out around the turn and we got caught behind a group of six that had three kids in it. So we jumped from 12 to 17, played the last two holes and called it a day.
I spent the afternoon doing the very fun manual cleaning of the pool. One of the joys vinyl liner pools is residue from sunscreen, hair products, body oils, etc. collect along the waterline and need to be scrubbed off occasionally. I really should have done this a couple days earlier as Monday was sunny and hot. Then again, I was floating on a noodle while I scrubbed the liner, so it really wasn’t that bad.
The only bummer of the weekend is that I’m getting hit by a cold. The girls all had really bad colds a week ago and I thought I had dodged the bullet. But all weekend I could feel the cold just sitting in the back of my throat, waiting to for me to drop my guard so it could take over. Thankfully it waited until after our weekend guests had left and plans were complete before really hitting me last night. It’s one of those fun colds where your throat hurts and just when you get to sleep you start coughing and wake up. It was not the most restful night. After going more than two years without a cold, I’ve now had two in a little under four months.
And now we’re in September. Summer is officially in the rearview mirror, football has begin, L and I saw Christmas decorations when we were at Hobby Lobby Saturday, and you can start looking in that back corner of your closets where the long-sleeved shirts have been hanging since April and think about wearing them again.
1. It wasn’t on TV here because the Reds game was on.
Wednesday was the first day at St. P’s, C starting 7th grade and L starting 5th. Which meant it was also our first day dropping off at two schools. The morning went about as good as possible. C was already awake when I got up, everyone was ready to get out the door at 7:00, and we encountered no slowdowns on the way to CHS. It’s about 20 minutes to CHS, then 10 or so back to St. P’s.
What did I do on my first day alone in a couple months? Well, I spent the entire day working on kickball things. Schedules came out the night before so I was plugging them into both our scheduling calendar at school and our personal calendar. I was making final adjustments to a couple teams. I was answering questions from coaches. I was sorting uniforms and getting them ready for distribution. I dealt with a couple minor issues with players and parents. I collected sports physicals so players are eligible. And I also had to scramble as I got a nasty gram from the parish office because of some parking issues at practice. It was a constant cycle of emails, texts, and calls that added two things to my task list for each item I checked off.
Thursday morning was also easy. C was not only awake when I got up, but she was dressed, had eaten, and was turning on the Xbox. We’ll see how long this new morning routine lasts with her. Friday will be the first day I take C and L to school then come back and get M since it is a late-start day at CHS.
Thursday I did take some time to relax a little. Unfortunately I decided to go hit golf balls and it was a disaster. I had been working on the swing changes my coach gave me and they were becoming more comfortable. I wanted to hit some balls Thursday, which would be the first time in a couple weeks, and then hopefully go play one day next week. But, good grief, you would thought I never swung a club before. Normally I can get a rhythm with my irons and hit two decent shots for every one bad one at the range. It’s on the tee that I struggle.
Today I couldn’t hit an iron to save my life. I kept hitting awful shot after awful shot. Once I took a huge divot about five inches behind and three inches inside of the ball. The ball sat there, untouched, taunting me. But I was halfway decent on the tee. Driver was slicing every time, but not always a terrible slice and generally with decent distance. And I was scorching my three wood. I’d say I had a 50-50 split between straight shots and slices, and the straight ones were very long. I’d hit 7-8 shots with the three wood, feel comfortable, and try to take it to my irons. As soon as I swung a lofted club my swing went to shit again. Usually it’s the opposite way. Looks like I need another lesson before I try to play.
My afternoon and evening were a constant battle with traffic. Pick up at St. P’s at 3:20, back home. Leave at 4:30 to get M from practice. Because of traffic what would be a 40 minute trip in the morning takes an hour. Immediately back into the traffic to get C to her practice. Back through same traffic again to go home and eat. And then back to get C. Part of me is bummed that C and L play kickball games at the same time, in different locations, four times this season. Another part of me is happy because that’s a few less drives I have to make since I’ll get one girl or the other a ride to her game.
We are in weird times. I’m talking about our family and the point in the calendar we’re at, not more globally. Summer’s end is coming up quick and we’re beginning to squeeze in as much as we can. But we also just came out of the hottest stretch of weather in nearly seven years here in Indy, which made it tough to want to get out of the house. Or use the pool, which was a rather disgusting 98 degrees much of the weekend.
Fortunately, it has turned cooler, even if for only briefly, and life is a little better.
In the midst of all that heat, L had her soccer camp at Cathedral last week. This was her second year there and I could tell she thought she was pretty cool as high school players acknowledged her by name on the first day. They won the state title last year, and I think L feels like she was a part of that somehow. Unfortunately, she’s been fighting a minor injury to her dominant foot and struggled through camp. We’re hoping a couple weeks of rest will have her ready for the fall kickball and soccer seasons. Still, she had fun at camp.
M spent last week in Michigan with her best friend’s family. Man, was it a quiet, enjoyable, low-drama week in our house! I kid a little. She also had a fantastic time and is lobbying for us to head north next summer when her friend returns. I’m pretty mellow about sending my kids off with others. I will admit, though, I had some weird feelings about sending my almost 15-year-old off on a vacation without us. I hope she didn’t talk to any boys.
Friday night S and I went out on a local lake with one of her coworkers and her husband. It was a balmy 95 with a heat index well over 100, so the cheese tray they brought had to be consumed quickly. We were on their boat about five minutes before they asked if we missed our boat. I immediately said, “Nope,” and they laughed at how quick I responded. A little later, after we had cruised for awhile, S said, “Well, maybe we miss the boat a little.” Again I said, “Nope. Having friends who own a boat is way better than owning one yourself.”
Yesterday L went to the driving range at our local pitch-and-putt course with me. We planned on just hitting a few balls together. But midway through the bucket she asked if her swing was good enough to play. I watched her a bit and while there were plenty swings-and-misses, when she hit the ball it generally went the right direction. When we were done I asked if she wanted to play, she said yes, so we did a quick nine.
She didn’t do bad for her first time, a rather loose 47.1 She did manage to go six holes longer than me before she lost her first, and only, ball of the day. As I love to do on this course, my first tee shot was hot and scooted right through the green into the water behind it. She waited until the sixth hole to shoot a ball deep into a grove of pine trees. She seemed to both have fun and work up a healthy bit of frustration over poor swings. Which is what golf is all about, right?
Me? A pretty meh 35 after starting 5-5. Keep in mind, the longest hole is 84 yards and most are in the 60s. I generally only hit PW and maybe GW around the green. The last time I played this course in May my short game was much better and I was actually hitting putts. I guess the highlight of the day was some of those changes my coach made starting to feel a little more normal and me absolutely lacing my final tee shot over on the range. I figured it was time to stop hitting after that one and kicked the last few balls over to L.
I mentioned squeezing stuff in before the end of summer. M has a series of high school orientation events that begin next Wednesday. The following weekend she has a nine-hour – NINE HOURS! – thing that S and I have to join her for part of. I’m honestly not sure what the hell they’re going to do for that long. Especially when they have another orientation session the day before school starts. And we have a big parent meeting for all kids playing sports two nights before school begins. Her first day is August 8. C and L get an extra week before they go back.
Anyway, we’re taking the girls and friends to the festival hosted at the church they went to preschool at tomorrow night. This weekend we have friends coming in from KC.2 And I asked the girls today to make a list of what else we need to do before we start worrying about classes and fall sports practices. I think these next two weeks are going to fly.
I say loose as we did not count misses, when she ran into trouble in some thick rough I only counted the swing that got her out of trouble, and she got a couple free re-hits. ↩
I am a world famous procrastinator. I’ve been putting shit off my entire life. Sometimes, even when I’m all fired up about something, I’ll put off an important step in enjoying that thing because, well, that’s just what I do.
I remind you of that because today, after something like 11 months of thinking about it, I finally took my first golf lesson. In my defense I’ve had a coach picked out for awhile and he’s been unavailable for three weeks because of family and travel plans. Still, you’d think I would have figured this out in the winter so I could, you know, actually be playing golf by now.
Anyways, I got hooked up with a local D1 college coach who just happens to be the grandfather of one of L’s best friends. I had been looking online for someone close to me and relatively inexpensive when I remembered his name. I checked with L’s friend’s mom – who is one of my kickball coaches – and she told me her father-in-law loved to teach and passed me his contact info. We emailed a few times, he shared his very reasonable rates, and then I waited for his family vacation and his team’s trip to Scotland to pass before we could get together.
We were scheduled for 60-75 minutes but ended up working for nearly two hours. My game was just that bad! No, really, he is a talker and shared a story or two between almost every shot I hit. There were a few moments when I was anxious to step in and hit another ball but he would launch into another story. I realized after the session was over that he’s not just chatty, he’s also working on slowing me down so I’m not just pounding ball after ball mindlessly.
My first shot was perfect…for showing him my flaws. I took about a six inch divot behind the ball and skulled a 7 iron about 45 yards. Next shot was ok, third shot was really solid. “Oh, you can break 90 easy with that swing,” he said. Then he proceeded to start tinkering with things.
Fortunately I had read a lot about lessons over the past few months and knew that as soon as he started messing with my swing, it would pretty much go to shit for awhile. Sure enough, I bet over half of my shots were god-awful. Another quarter were piss-poor. Normally when I’m on the range, once I get in a rhythm I can actually look halfway decent. Between me thinking about what he was telling me and all the changes he made to my swing making it feel awkward, I was hitting more shitty balls than usual.
But in the last 15-20 minutes things locked in a little. The swing still did not feel right, but I started making better contact with more predictable results. I have never, ever been able to hit a driver consistently. Not with the old persimmon club I first played with, not with the cheap metal woods I had later, not with the bargain-bin, used Taylor Made club I bought last fall. I’m not going to say I hit the driver great today. But I also was not hitting the 40-yard slice I normally hit. A few would have been perfect shots if I had been traveling with him on the links courses last week; long, low shots that would roll for days on the Scottish turf.
So what did he do to me? We worked on weight transfer, which I know is my biggest issue. He, and others, have told me I have a decent swing. I just tend to not transfer my weight properly and that’s why I hit all kinds of fat or topped balls. He worked on getting me to understand the proper path that the club should take. A few words on tempo. He adjusted my grip so it was a little stronger. Moved the ball a little in my stance (he’s an advocate of the ball always being in roughly the same spot rather than moving it based on club selection.) Had me relax my right arm some at address, dip my right shoulder, and rotate both shoulders away from the open stance I didn’t realize I was taking.
It took us nearly two hours to get through a large bucket of balls. I would have liked to hit a few more, but with us running so long, his cost was well over half what a couple other pros I considered charged, so I’m not going to complain.
Now in addition to working on the changes he suggested, I need to get my ass on a real course. He suggested a course that I’ve got to hit balls at quite a bit as a good, affordable, fairly open course to play in the evening. He is in the process of moving closer to that course so our next session may be playing there together.
As I said, I had read up on lessons and what to expect, especially for someone of my skill level. Based on that, I definitely think this was a productive session that will help me get better. Still, there’s that little part of me that wanted to be hitting everything straight and long after just one lesson. Not sure I’ll ever get to that point, but I hope there was at least some minor improvement today.
I think I firmly established my old man status by watching approximately 800 hours of golf this weekend. Now, it was the US Open, which is always big. Before we had a lake home and spent most of our June weekends there, I was still watching the Open for hours on Father’s Day weekend. And Topeka, Kansas’ own Gary Woodland leading for over half of the tournament, from his late Friday charge through his memorable back nine Sunday to win his first major, also helped.
Obviously I’m thrilled with Woodland’s win. It has certainly fueled my rediscovery of golf that he is one of the most talented players on the tour. It’s nice that he has a major win to elevate his status from just another guy with talent in a sport that is filled with those guys. His round Sunday was filled with some nervous moments. At times his game off the tee resembled mine: no idea what direction it might go. But, unlike a guy he is often compared to, Dustin Johnson, he found a way to recover from every mistake, or at least limit the damage. Along the way he hit two shots that will go down in US Open history, and be shown each time the championship comes back to Pebble Beach.
His three wood from the fairway on 14 had people Tweeting the Sam Cassell Big Balls GIF. That was just an amazing shot, up the hill, over a bunker, into a tight pin location, as his wheels were getting a little wobbly. That birdie tuned a one-shot lead into a two-shot cushion, largely eliminating Justin Rose and making it very tough for Brooks Koepka to have a chance.
And his chip off the green on 17, which he nearly holed, came after one of his worst shots of the day, an absolutely flubbed iron off the tee that came up approximately 175 yards short of the pin. Yet he calmly clipped it, without taking a divot, and left himself with a couple feet for a gutsy par. On the No Laying Up message board, someone posted that the average golfer attempting that shot would have hit the ball into the ocean or taken a huge crater out of the green. Or both.
Onions.
And then Woodland closed in style, drilling a 30-feet birdie on 18 after three shots that were almost too safe coming up the fairway.
His win was made more impressive by the run that Brooks Koepka made at him. The two-time defending champion, and winner of the last two PGA titles, birdied four of his first five holes which made it feel inevitable that the best golfer in the sport would catch and pass him no matter what Gary did. It felt like the Sentry Tournament of Champions in January, where Woodland entered the final round with a lead, shot a terrific 68 – one of only two rounds in the 60s – and yet still lost because Xander Schauffele dropped a course-record 62 on him. Sunday Brooks was going low and there was nothing Woodland could do about it.
Until we had that crazy 30–45 minutes where all of the contenders kept fucking up. Koepka would hit it into the rough. Woodland found sand on the right. Rose found sand on the left. Repeat. It was a comedy of errors as all three men seemed to wilt under pressure. As he did all weekend, Woodland found a way to make pars out of bogeys, and limit his bogeys to single shots lost rather than multiples. It was just enough to keep Koepka from ever catching him.
Good, entertaining golf all around. Although I do love the bloody US Opens where no one can break par and all the players are complaining about how unfair the conditions are.
I admit that if Woodland was not a Kansan and a Jayhawk, I would have been pulling hard for Koepka and history. Woodland is kind of the classic boring golfer. He has a huge game, but never shows much emotion. Hell, other than raising his arms and giving a fist pump after his final putt dropped, he still didn’t look a guy who had just won his first major. I think I’d be pissing myself where he remained cool and blank. But fact is he has a Jayhawk on his bag, comes from my home state, and hasn’t seemed to say or do anything super dumb, so I’m on board with him.
I’ve learned that having takes about golf means you need to have takes about the coverage. Fox did much, much better than CBS would have done and outpaced NBC’s efforts as well. Thursday and Friday were absolutely tremendous, exactly the way golf should be covered. Coverage of a wide range of golfers, reduced commercial breaks, some real quality analysis, not too many fluff pieces. Saturday and Sunday skewed more toward traditional coverage, but they still did a better job than CBS or NBC would have done. They’ve come a long way from the first couple years they had the US Open when it seemed like no one had any idea what they were doing.
Some quick words about the NBA Finals.
L is funny. She has favorite sports teams, but she can’t watch them play. Or at least not for very long. Whether it’s the US Women’s soccer team, the Royals, or the Warriors, she’ll sit down to watch a game with me, get antsy, and quickly give up, telling me, “Will you let me know who wins?” The funny thing is when I tell her one of her teams loses, she gets all frustrated. So she was very frustrated as the Raptors and the Hoops Gods defeated the Warriors.
Yeah, I said it. All props to the Raptors for winning a title I don’t think anyone gave them a chance to win. But that was clearly Hoops Gods in action. How else do you explain Kevin Durant getting hurt not once, but twice? If he plays and is healthy the entire series, the Warriors win in five or six. How else do you explain Klay Thompson, who was playing the best basketball of his life, blowing out his ACL on a fairly innocuous play in an elimination game? The Hoops Gods were either sick of the Warriors or punishing them for hubris. I’m pretty sure if game six had gone to OT Draymond Green would have gotten another T so that he would have been suspended for game seven. And if game seven was close, 100% that Steph would have gotten hurt. The Warriors were flat not winning.
So L was bummed and the Dubs’ dynasty likely comes to an end. It’s pretty crazy that they were arguably the greatest block in NBA history and a bad calf muscle away from winning five straight titles. That really shouldn’t happen in the modern NBA.
After C and L wrapped up their school year last Tuesday, we set early alarms and headed off to the airport at 5:30 Wednesday morning to get our flight to San Diego. It was the girls’ first trip to California, and the first visit to San Diego for S and I. Other than normal teenage sister bullshit and a few too many clouds, it was a good trip.
Thanks to that early flight – we had an hour layover in Las Vegas – we landed in California around 11:00 AM. After getting our bags and picking up our car, we had the whole day in front of us.
Our first stop was La Jolla and a walk along the beach. This was the grayest, chilliest morning of our visit. San Diego is in the midst of its “June Gloom” phase, when the marine layer rolls in and blocks the sun most of the day. Yet the beach was pretty busy. M did stick her feet into the water so she could say she’s been in the Pacific, but it was not a hang out at the beach kind of day for us Midwesterners. We strolled through some shops near the beach and had our first round of tacos.
Then it was off to our hotel. We were staying at the Hilton that was set against the southern half of Torrey Pines golf course. We were so close you could hear what people on the course were saying from the pool. I spent a lot of time watching golfers come up the 18th fairway, of which we had a clear view of the from our entire hotel. I even snagged a handful of Pro V1’s that had been hit onto hotel property. One day I walked up to the clubhouse and golf shop. Part of our Hilton visit included a 15% coupon that was good for items in the golf shop. Two problems: most of the Torrey Pines gear is ugly and the coupon did not cover anything that was US Open related. Even though TP isn’t hosting the Open for two more years, I’m guessing 75% of the items in the store had the Open logo on it. Even if the coupon was good, I would feel a little silly walking around with a shirt or hat that said “US Open 2021” on it.
After freshening up we went back to La Jolla and stopped by both the gliderport, where hang gliders jump off of cliffs to sail the air currents, and another beach and see the seals that have taken over.
Between the very early alarm and the time change, we kept things chill in the evening. I think we were all in bed and asleep by 7:30 PDT. And, amazingly, we all slept until around 6:30 the next morning.
Day two we got serious. We went to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo. Both lived up to the hype. I did make an observation in the zoo, though. For people our age, the San Diego Zoo was the greatest zoo in the world. Mostly because we saw Joan Embery on the Tonight Show. It was also light years ahead of other zoos in how it presented its animals. I realized that while the San Diego Zoo is still awesome, zoos in other cities have all followed its lead. The Indianapolis Zoo is much smaller and constrained by climate conditions, but it really looks like a mini-SD Zoo. 30–40 years ago, I think most mid or small city zoos were primarily steel and concrete pens with little to make you think you were seeing the animals in their native state. You can debate whether zoos are ethical enterprises or not, but the San Diego Zoo’s influence has clearly been a good thing for animals in zoos everywhere.
After the zoo we took the girls for another first: lunch at In N Out Burger. I believe it had been 15 years since my last In N Out visit. Oh man was it good! And the girls all loved it. They all said it was their favorite burger ever. That night it was back to La Jolla – our hotel was just 10–15 minutes from much of the cool stuff in LJ – for sushi for dinner. You would think getting sushi in California would be magical. I have to say, though, that only one thing we got was t better than the couple sushi places we frequent here.
Friday we drove up to Torrey Pines State Park, which was just beyond the golf course, for a few hours of hiking. We started with an easy loop trail and then tried the more challenging beach trail that included a 350 foot drop. It was another gray, cool morning but we worked up quite the sweat on the beach trail and then climbing back to our parking spot. Looking down at the Pacific from the cliffs of Torrey Pines was an amazing view and made it worth it.
For lunch we went, shocker, back to La Jolla to a little spot called Girard Gourmet. It is a Belgian-style eatery that has a huge, wonderful menu of deli items. I had the single best breakfast sandwich I’ve ever had; simply eggs, turkey, cheese, and avocado on a croissant. We walked in when they were prepping a big order for carry out and although they got our food together fairly quickly, they couldn’t get us our bill until we were done eating. When the lady apologized for the wait when I went to pay, I told her that it was totally worth it. Another older woman behind the counter, who we guessed was the owner, turned her head and said, “That’s nice to hear, thank you!” Made my day.
We strolled around LJ for a bit and when we walked by the restaurant later there was a line at least 10 people deep to order. This is a key part of our trip: we tended to be early and just barely avoid crowds. It seemed like everywhere we went we’d be among the first to arrive and soon after there would be a huge line. One exception to that in a moment…
Friday evening we drove a few miles inland to have dinner at S’s cousin’s home. He and his wife are 10–12 years younger than us and have three kids under five. When we asked for advice for places to go over the weekend, they sheepishly admitted that they don’t get out much. Ahhh, traveling with moody teen girls is a pain in the ass but at least we can get out of the house!
Saturday we went into the city to explore Little Italy and the Gaslamp Quarter. We had brunch at a wonderful place called the Farmer’s Table in Little Italy and then strolled through the farmer’s market. The sun was finally out so the girls were discovering why San Diego weather is so great. We also went into the Padres’ team store where L got a hat and I got a pretty dope Swingin’ Friar Ale shirt. On our way back north we drove by the USS Midway – lines were long and we figured the girls wouldn’t be into it so we did not stop – and then through the Liberty Station district.
Back to the hotel for some chill time before we made a second trip to Balboa Park. We were in search of the Japanese Gardens, however they appeared to be roped off for a wedding. We wondered how much that cost. Then back to Petco Park for the Padres-Nationals game. We had seats in the second deck in left field which were pretty solid. Petco is a really nice stadium and feels perfectly San Diego. The turf looked more like a putting green than a big league outfield. It was a typically modest crowd and the game was not that memorable. L wore her Alex Gordon jersey. I had a couple Swingin’ Friar Ales, which I really enjoyed. Sadly this was only my ninth Major League stadium.
Sunday we drove down to Coronado Island and spent most of the day there. This was an important stop for me. My mom and stepdad stayed at the Hotel Del Coronado on their honeymoon in 1985 and he always told me I needed to go there some day. We did walk around the grounds, but when we saw how much it would cost to take our family there – roughly $1200 a night! – we decided for now a tour would have to do. The girls were being extra shitty during this part of the trip so, unfortunately, my mood was a little clouded during our time on the island as well. We rented a golf cart and puttered around a little bit. We realized after the fact that I had twice driven where I was not supposed to be. And in an area that was totally golf cart friendly a woman almost ran a stop sign and hit us. That would have been a bummer.
Sunday was the warmest day of our visit. As S’s cousin told us, even on days when the air temperature is only in the 70s, the sun is very hot because SD is so far south. Sunday was one of those days. Walk through the shade and it is the absolute perfect temperature. Get in the sun for a few minutes and you start roasting. The plan was to take the girls back to the hotel so they could swim. They had enjoyed the pool on cloudy days when it was deserted. For some reason they all decided that they were too tired to swim Sunday. So S and I sat near it and read for awhile.
For dinner we tried to go to a place S had found called The Taco Stand in La Jolla. We knew that it can get very busy and there are often long lines, but Google said Sunday evenings were the best time to go. When we arrived there was a line maybe 20 people deep but we figured, “How long can it take to make tacos?” After about 15 minutes in line and having only moved up a few feet, we decided tacos take longer than we could deal with. So we quickly found the nearest In N Out and made our second stop of the trip. Seriously, how could I forget how good In N Out is? I told the girls back when I traveled for work, I remember once driving 90 minutes round trip just to get In N Out. Back at the hotel, as the marine layer drifted back in, M and I tried to get some sunset pics as the last few groups of the day finished up on the 18th hole in front of us. Unfortunately the photo opps were not great due to the clouds.
Monday we packed up and headed to the North Park area, which was funky and cool and fun. We perused a few shops, I took some pictures, and we cruised into the North Park Taco Stand location just after opening and had zero wait to get our tacos and burritos. A perfect end to a very good trip. We all understood why the lines are so long; these were good fucking tacos!
And that’s it. In all my trips to California, I had never been south of LA. I certainly had a mental image of San Diego but I really enjoyed finally getting to see the city for myself. It is hillier than I thought. In fact, it feels more Bay Area than SoCal to me because of the hills and the June Gloom. I imagine the ten months of the year that aren’t dominated by the marine layer might give me a different impression. But with my year of NoCal living, I connected quickly with the feeling of San Diego in June. As much as I love San Francisco, San Diego doesn’t feel as crowded, is certainly cleaner, and the weather is definitely better. Although we’re trying to branch out and go to new places when we are able to travel, I would love to give San Diego another visit at some point.
Some other things I forgot to jam in above:
* Man are the Las Vegas and San Diego airports cramped messes! It really makes me appreciate how new and spacious the Indy airport is. Tax money well spent!
* I got my first driver’s license in California. I used to travel to Cali for work about once a month. I know California traffic. So I was shocked at how little traffic there was in San Diego. We only ran into one slow down, and that was just a few miles on our drive to S’s cousin’s home, which came right at 5:00. We sailed from Torrey Pines to anywhere we wanted to go on the freeways. Traffic in La Jolla was often congested, but that was city traffic with intersections and lights. I was expected LA-style slowdowns on the freeways every time we used them.
* My one big disappointment from the trip was not being able to see the Marine jets that roared over our hotel. Every 15–20 minutes they would come shrieking right above our heads from the Miramar base just a few miles away. But the marine layer was so thick that even though the jets were still very low, we couldn’t see them. Saturday and Sunday, when it cleared, there were no jets flying. Apparently being a Marine pilot is a Monday-through-Friday gig. Sunday on Coronado we heard some jets taking off from the Navy base there, but were too far away to see them.
* I laughed at one point when I realized that when I think of Southern California, my mental image is still based on late 1970s pop culture. CHiPs, Charlie’s Angels, Three’s Company, etc. That was over 40 years ago and things have changed massively, but I still had that vibe in my head the entire time.
* After every trip there’s a part of me that wants to go Cliff Clavin after his visit to Florida. Become an annoying expert on all things about my destination, adopt all their sports teams, act like I am from there, etc. There are worse places to adopt than San Diego.
It was a strange Memorial Day weekend. For the first time since 2013 we were not at the lake. As the weekend got closer, it kept feeling very strange not to automatically have plans and to not have people asking us, “You going to the lake this weekend?” As other friends went off to their own lake homes, and as the temperature and humidity climbed, I did have a few moments of wishing we still had the house. Especially since L and I were right down the hill at camp Thursday and Friday.
Ahh, but then I remembered all the reasons I was so for getting rid of the lake house even before we bought our new home here and any regret quickly fell away.
We had a pretty laid back weekend at home. Saturday evening we had some of the local family over for a cookout. S and I are really enjoying her sisters having two and three year olds. Not that our girls don’t have their issues. In fact two of them got into it during our gathering Saturday. But with teens you yell at them, take away their phones, and send them to their rooms. With two year olds, however, they just keep sucking the life out of you. S and I tipped our drinks to each other a few times as one parent or another was getting frustrated by a toddler that wasn’t listening to them. Our only jobs are to make sure the kids don’t get into any dangerous situations and don’t get any food or drinks near our new furniture. The rest is on the parents.
Sunday was race day in Indy. We did what people in Indy who don’t go to the race do: projects around the house while listening to the race on the radio. I remember how weird I thought that was when I moved here. “You listen to a car race on the radio?!?!” Now it’s a regular part of my Memorial Day weekend. We were cleaning gutters when the Air Force flyover circled over our house twice, which was pretty cool. Later in the evening we went out with our old neighbors at a very cool area in Carmel. I swear, Carmel has gotten like 80% cooler in the 11 months since we’ve moved.
Monday L and I went out in the morning to play some golf. Well, she played foot golf while I played nine next to her on the pitch-n-putt course. The course was very wet since it has rained about 97 straight days here, so she struggled in her first attempt at foot golf. I told her to kick low line drives so they would roll, but the first time the ball hit the ground it would quickly get water-logged and come to a halt. She “kicked” a 40 or something like that. She’ll do better next time. It was also her first lesson in golf etiquette, which she didn’t always get. When I told her the ball farthest from the hole always hits first, she took that very literally. She thought I should walk behind the green and see how far my ball was from the hole before she kicked her ball that was short of the green. Luckily after a couple holes she caught on to the concept of ready golf.
Monday evening we went to a party for a nephew’s third birthday. He’s the first of the local boys to turn three, and his two younger buddies were both there. The birthday boy was very happy to share the unwrapping of his gifts with his cousins, which was a good thing since I’m not sure everyone understood it wasn’t their birthday, too. There was a lot of grabbing of bags and taking things out and then playing with new toys before the birthday boy even got a chance to see them. There were also some tears when gifts were taken away and given to the birthday boy. Again, S and I laughed and laughed, and got the hell out when things looked like they were spiraling out of control.
Summer has not begun for us. M is in school until Thursday. C and L go through next Tuesday. The schedule is stupid this year but, I must admit, I voted for it 18 months ago. Of course, I thought we would still own a lake house at the time and figured an extra weekend in August is better than one in early June. I’ll know better next time…
What else can you say to Tiger Woods winning the Master’s in 2019, 11 years after his last major victory and 14 years since his last win in Augusta? It was a pretty insane weekend down at Augusta National.
First, a big shout out to Mother Nature. Usually if I’m discussing her I’m calling her a bitch. But by threatening severe storms in Georgia, and thus moving the tournament’s final round up to Sunday morning, and also raining out C’s track meet here in Indy, I was able to watch every second of Sunday’s glorious coverage.
Well, not every second. I took a 15 minute break around 10:30 to get a quick shower just in case I was forced to leave the house at some point. That shower came at a good time, right when Tiger had had a rough patch on the front nine. My showering seemed to both improve my odor and his game, as he was birdieing #7 when I sat back on the couch.
Favorite shot of the week: I think the easy choice is Tiger’s tee shot on 16 Sunday, that was pretty much perfect. Well, not as perfect as Bryson Dechambeau or Justin Thomas, who both carded aces earlier in the day. Tiger’s missed the cup by about three inches and left him with a tap-in for birdie. Pretty, pretty good.
But I’ll go with something that came earlier and was more impressive. His first putt on #9. It was a tricky 40 or so footer. He aimed well away from the hole to grab the ridge and then had to get the speed just right so that the ball didn’t zoom past the hole once it caught the downslope. It was a ridiculous shot that took nearly 20 seconds from impact to when it came up inches shy of the hole. Twice it looked like it was coming to a dead stop, only to find a nudge of gravity to slowly rotate again. It was utterly insane. One writer I follow, who has seen a lot of golf, said it was the best lag putt he had ever seen. Tiger was not hitting the ball great at this point, and it seemed like Francesco Molinari was going to par his way to the title. But that putt showed that Tiger was capable of something no one else was and, I believe, gave him confidence in himself for the back nine.
And, come on, that might have been the greatest back nine ever. The final two groups to go through 12 put four balls in Rae’s Creek. I was literally yelling at the TV, “OH MY GOD!!!” as balls kept coming up short. In the midst of that, Tiger hits a sublime and safe shot, pars the hole, and is suddenly tied for the lead. Molinari hits a terrible second shot on 15, then catches a tree branch and ends up in the water again, effectively ending his day. Meanwhile Tiger is striping the ball off the tee, looking like his vintage self.
But wait. Up ahead Brooks Koepka, Ricky Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Xander Shauffele, and Patrick Cantlay are all trying to get into it. I’m pretty sure there was a two or three minute stretch were 20 or 30 guys were tied for the lead. Cantlay momentarily took the lead with an eagle on 15, only to play 16 with a brutal bogey. My favorite tweet of the day was from someone who said, after Cantlay’s eagle, “NOT FUCKING NOW PATRICK!!!”
That kind of summed up the day. As the back nine at Augusta tends to do, it was giving us terrific drama. There was like a 15–20 minute stretch where CBS showed us an important shot every 10–15 seconds. It was both amazing and dizzying to watch. But we didn’t want drama, we wanted Tiger.
Hey, some props to CBS. They tend to take a lot of heat in the golf circles I follow for their coverage. Most folks I follow believe NBC does a much better job showing the game. Likely because it was Augusta and they aren’t totally in control, CBS mostly got out of the way and let the golf present itself. Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo did say some stupid shit, but that’s to be expected.
Further props for wiping out their morning schedule and showing golf for nearly six hours. The annual complaint about the Masters is the limited TV schedule on the weekend. Good on the Augusta management and CBS for making it work.
Another fine moment from the weekend: that freaking security guy who nearly took out Tiger on Friday. Imagine if he had actually taken Tiger’s knee out as he crashed into him???
So, really, how did this happen? No matter how good they once were, guys in their 40s with fused backs, reconstructed knees, and nearly a decade of personal issues are not supposed to come back and win majors. Not in an era that is filled with much younger, physically gifted, ridiculously talented golfers. Yet here we are and folks are talking, in dead seriousness, about Tiger running through the summer and winning the Grand Slam to tie Jack Nicklaus’ all time major championship record.
Let’s pump the breaks on that a little. It’s great that Tiger is competitive on the game’s biggest stage again. But I don’t think he’s anywhere near approaching the kind of dominance he had in his prime. Everything came together at Augusta. It probably won’t at Bethpage, Pebble Beach, or Royal Port Rush. But it’s fun that it is a possibility again. And, again, there is a huge swath of absolutely crazy talented players out there right now.[1]
For an old time Tiger fan, I found this to be an immensely entertaining and enjoyable weekend. No matter how I feel about him as a person, it’s hard not to get sucked into the hype machine that I was so in-tune with for a decade or so. But…
As remarkable as his physical rehabilitation is – and it’s a great story – I’m still not ready to brush away his other sins. As I said last fall, I really don’t care how an athlete or entertainer lives their life. But I can find it icky, for lack of a better word. And there’s no doubt Tiger lived an icky life for a long time, wrecking his family in the process. For all the emotional outpouring that came with his embrace of his kids and mother after his win, I kept thinking about how it was his fault that his kids have had a difficult time of it. I hope he’s a changed and better man. But how do we know, because he always presented himself as a good family man before he hit that fire hydrant and shit got weird. I’m just saying let’s not act like he’s some super perfect human being now just because he suffered, learned, maybe changed, and now occasionally laughs at himself.
Oh, it probably didn’t help that this weekend I was reading Hank Haney’s The Big Miss, about his years coaching Tiger, which coincided with all the ickyness becoming public. I’ll write more about the book later but it was a reminder that Tiger dug his own holes with both the icky behavior and a long run of strange behavior that likely caused/contributed to his physical breakdown.
So Tiger the guy, I’m still not on board with. Tiger the golfer? Yeah, I’m totally down with him, especially after this remarkable, unforgettable weekend at the Masters.
I haven’t mentioned Rory McIlroy yet, maybe the best of the bunch, who had a rough weekend in Georgia. ↩
This mini-documentary hits a lot of things I like: photography, golf, beautiful eccentrics to name three. It made me both happy and sad as I watched it.
Fair warning: plenty of NSFW language in this piece.
Another busy weekend with the kids. L had soccer both days – one win, one tie, four goals, two assists – M babysat for 8 hours Saturday and cheered on Sunday, and C ran on Sunday, getting 8th place with her strongest run of the year.
Thus I missed a lot of what was broadcast on the teevee over those two days. I was able to catch a lot of Tiger getting his first PGA Tour win in over five years. That was kind of special.
I guess one piece of my re-discovery of golf that I had not shared was how the Golf Channel became part of my regular viewing once we got cable hooked up in July. Our channel lineup is just a little different on Comcast than it was on Uverse. Part of the difference is a slightly more limited selection of sports channels. Also, the Golf Channel is much closer to ESPN than it was at the old house. So, the week of the British Open, I began watching the Golf Channel’s coverage. And then I just kept watching. Where ESPN shows a bunch of terrible, people shouting and arguing shows during the day, the Golf Channel generally had more traditional analysis of what was going on that week, highlights, live views of practice rounds or, on Thursdays and Fridays, quick looks at live action before their regular coverage began. It was just a good way to have some sports on the TV as background noise.
Oh, and it helped that Tiger was rounding into form just as I began watching.
So this past Thursday and Friday, I had TGC on the entire time the Tour Championship was on. Friday we had a furniture delivery. As the guys passed through the living room, they paused, looked at the TV, and asked, “Is Tiger still leading?” I wasn’t the only on paying attention.
I got home Sunday in time to watch Tiger finish on the 17th then the amazing scene on the 18th, as the galleries flooded in behind him on his walk to the green.
It reminded me of the one time I saw Tiger live, in the summer of his breakthrough 1998 season in Chicago at the old Western Open. We had a long drive back to Kansas City ahead of us, so after cruising the course for a few hours, we were only able to watch Tiger play the first hole. We posted up near the green so we could watch both his approach shot and then him finish the hole. I’ll never forget the vision of him coming up over the hill in the fairway, his familiar red shirt setting him out from the crowd. There was a strong sense of anticipation in the galleries and a gasp and buzz when we could see him. And this was young Tiger, when he had only won a single Major, not 14, and just a few PGA events, not 80. We didn’t rush onto the fairway behind him, but I know people would have if the marshals had dropped the ropes.
Tiger finished the hole, moved to the second, we raced to our car for the drive home, and periodically checked sports radio to follow his progress as he won the event.
I was all-in on the Tiger experience back then. And remained so until he fell apart. If Tiger was in contention, I was watching. Even if I had a baby on my chest or a toddler chatting away next to me.
But when his personal life fell apart, it was easy to turn off my interest in him. I was in my late 30s, a father of three, hadn’t played golf in years, and was disgusted by his behavior. Not that I was surprised: I worked at a golf course briefly in my teens and every pro at the course spent most of their time trying to sleep with every woman that came into the pro shop. Those guys were all shmoes working at a mediocre public course in California. The best golfer in the world, the most recognizable athlete on the planet chasing women left and right? Based on my limited experience with golf pros it was no surprise.[1]
So Tiger went in a box with Lance Armstrong, guys I once spent a ridiculous amount of time following, who I had admired greatly, but through hubris or stupidity or greed or a combination of all of those had taken dramatic and public falls from grace. Athletes I was a little embarrassed to have appreciated so much, whose histories I did my best not to talk about.[2]
Of course, there was more to Tiger’s story than just the personal issues. His game and perhaps his lifestyle – notably his fascination/obsession with special forces – destroyed his body. There were the knee injuries. And then the back injuries. Every so often Joe Posnanski would address the Tiger situation, after a reader or commentator suggested Tiger could still break Jack Nicklaus’ majors record. Joe would point out that most golfers suffer a serious decline in ability as they hit their mid–40s, and those were guys who were healthy. Then he would remind the questioner that Tiger had blown out a knee, had a back that required one, then two, then three, then four surgeries. Tiger, Joe said, may never win a silly season tournament, let alone a regular tour stop. Five more majors? That was ridiculous.
Tiger seemed to agree, suggesting as recently as last spring that his career might be over.
Maybe the past two months have been an aberration, a brief window of health in which Tiger got his game together and willed himself to a couple narrow losses and a very big win. Perhaps his back will break down when the adrenaline of the golf season passes, and next spring will bring a return to frustrating failures on the course. I hope that Tiger hasn’t had to mismanage his pain meds to get his body to comply with his requests of it.
All that is to say Joe Posnanski may still be right. When the 2019 golf calendar rolls around, there’s no guarantee that Tiger will be able to contend at Augusta and the other three majors. That’s what made this weekend so fun as a viewer and one-time Tiger maniac. I don’t know if he has his life together. I don’t know how I feel about him as a person, although being older has caused me to have less-and-less faith in athletes as people and made me focus more on their performance on the field, which makes it a little easier to separate man from game. I just know it’s been tremendously entertaining to watch him over the past two months, doing things I never thought he would do again.
Justin, Dustin, Ricky, Brooks, Bryson, Rory, and Jordan are the present and futures of golf. It was kind of nice for Tiger, even if only briefly, to put his name back in that conversation.
I should note here that I have been friends with several golf pros over my adult years. And none of them ever exhibited this kind of behavior. They were all good fathers and husbands. And I’m guessing most are. ↩
To be fair to Tiger, he and Lance had very different failings and fallings. Tiger’s abilities and accomplishments have never come into question, where Lance’s entire career was revealed to be a lie. ↩
