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My player this week is A. J. Eathorne.
Week off: Without
a job for the Match Play, it's off to
Toledo to spend an idle week with Rick "The Nerd," but first a
visit with Dave Baker was in order. He
has taken up residence in Warren Ohio not far from Avalon Lakes Golf
Course where we used to play. Back in business for himself once more, Dave
can fix your your sticks or make up a new set to keep you in the fairway.
Dave may be found at 170
North Road NE Warren OH 44483
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ZZZZZZZ; Haven't slept this well in
years. Even taking naps during the day which is unheard of for me.
Rick and I were watching the World Cup game between Germany and Italy
and we both fell asleep but awoke just in time to catch the two goals
in overtime for the Italian win. Kind of like catching the highlights
but in real time. Touching on the same subject, this reminds of one of
the best retorts I've ever heard. Jeff Steffler (footie fanatic) was
once describing a miscue by a goalie as "He just fell
asleep" and was quickly responded to with "What did you
expect, he was watching soccer!".
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$$$$$; Had a thorough
check-up of my automobile and the repair costs are formidable. With
almost 197K on the odometer, slow disintegration is inevitable. The
engine still runs strong with little oil consumption but a shot
suspension, along with other numerous maladies, plague my trusted
transportation. Solved a couple problems with a trip to the bone yard
for a coolant reservoir and automatic door lock.
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It's a girl; A
new arrival has blessed the home of George, Melaina and Daniel Knox. Melaina
helps out in the bag room during our visit to Nashville and takes care
of us in A-1 fashion.
Name: Devin Jean
Knox
Born: 6/20/06 @ 1:28pm
Weight: 6lbs 11.8oz
Length: 20 inches
The happy family.
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Good run; Morgan Pressel
and her cadero Sam have parted ways. They were together ever since Sam
picked her at the Michelob event last season while Morgan was still an
amateur. A local is on the bag this week (Match Play).
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Many years ago, in a
place far, far away ... Who knows what motivates one to be a
caddie? The lure of the open road, the love of the game or some other
intrinsic desire deep within one's being. Years ago, quite an odd sort
of a fellow gravitated to life on the tour and, after a tumultuous few
years, departed to forever leave his mark on society. Vernon Allen
(always to be known just as Vern) dressed himself in army fatigues
much of the time and had a propensity of curios behavior. He fished
out a putter Rosie Jones chunked into a pond in Seattle only to deep
six it once again when Rosie wouldn't come up with enough ransom and
was once on the receiving end of some fisticuffs administered by a player's
brother after a disparaging remark.
A few years back, word circulated
that Vern's fuse finally blew in the most violent of ways. His neighbors
had apparently grated upon his last nerve and paid with their lives.
After a bit of searching, I discovered confirmation of his final
destination. Vern now occupies his own snippet of "hell on earth"
in a correctional facility in Oklahoma. Click
here to get a gander of our most infamous cadero.
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Yowza!! Caddies
have come a long way, starting from the military cadets looping for the
French royalty, and later adopted by Mary
Queen of Scots, to the highly specialized caderos working the pro
tours. But somewhere in-between lies the the ubiquitous club caddie
gifted with various degrees of expertise from "I know this course like the
back of my hand" to "I carry this @%&# sack for beer
money". Now comes along a new breed of looper to tantalize the
most avid golf fanatic with visions of executing their finest score
ever. As their slogan goes, "Your game never looked this good". Find the caddie of your dreams here
or here.
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Take that! Watched
the whole World Cup final without a snooze. At one point, memories
surfaced of an old time wrestler, famous for his head-butts, named Bobo
Brazil. Check
out this video.
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Blazing success;
Do you own a Dell laptop? I
believe this hot model is the Pyromaniac 1000.
Tournament
Week Monday:
A. J. played in Elaine Crosby's pro-am in Michigan and, with a pro am scheduled
for both morning and afternoon at Highland Meadows, I basically had the
day off. It was not spent watching the tube however. My final stab at eradicating
the gremlins from Karen Stupple's old Vaio laptop was met with
frustration. It had been on the fritz for some time before she replaced it
at The Open. I ran antivirus scans and every spyware program I had (all in
safe mode) to no avail. The demons were so entrenched the programs just
locked up. The last resort was to go back to square one. I backed up her
data and created the rescue discs only to find that disc number one was
blank! But all is not lost. Sony will provide originals for a nominal fee.
Should be good as new. A steak
dinner with mashed taters and green peas (along with a few Budweisers)
served ala the great outdoors (Karen camps) was my reward for the effort.
Tuesday:
Two more off-site pro-ams left the course deserted. We
played eight holes (cut short by a clap of thunder) and putted a
little.
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You lose; A
bright yellow t-shirt embossed with "AUSTRALIA" was donned
by Herr Steffler settling a wager placed on the World Cup.
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Add one more;
Looks like Ginn Resorts has signed on for another event next season. RiverTowne
Country Club in Mount Pleasant South Carolina will host the latest
addition and, if it's anything like the one in Orlando, will be first
rate. Read all about it here.
Wednesday:
WASH OUT! Fifteen minutes before we teed it up, the skies let
loose and thunder rolled through the fairways of Highland Meadows. We
stuck it out for a couple hours but, with no relief in sight, play was
called for the day. 
The
ninth. A river runs through it. 
A
quick cadero pic during a respite in the storm. Watch the birdie Greg!
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Lets go shopping; My
wide brimmed hat finally bit the dust last week, ripping from starboard
to port, so it was a perfect time to search for a replacement. Being
reminded a Cabella's
Outfitter was just a short jaunt away in Michigan, I headed North
and it didn't take long to find what was needed. Purchased a San
Juan Packable Hat which is a close match to what I had but not as
wide a brim. It'll do. Took a peek at all the lasers that were
available (one of the largest selections in one place) but passed
before temptation got the best of me. They were mostly targeted for
hunters anyway.
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Caddie info; Mike
Bunch (AKA Cornbread) is looping for Lorie Kane as Danny, her regular,
is taking some personal time.
Scraper headed back home to Portland
last week and Donna (pictured above) will be on Becky Morgan's sack for
the rest of the season.
Motion (also pictured above back
left) is calling it quits for the second time in his caddie career.
Lucky we don't solicit donations for a gold watch, he'd have one for
each arm!
The Princess (Lisa Kiggens) is
taking another week off from her job if (if that's what you call it) at
Corning C. C. to tote for Dina Ammaccapane.
Thursday: A
nice and steady bogey free round left us with a very respectable -3. Not
bad for being on the DL for six weeks. We "played ball in hand"
to compensate for the sloppy conditions and A. J. took full advantage.
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In the nick of time;
I confused our 8:50 pro-am tee time with today's 7:30 start (thinking
we were off at 7:50) and just made our scheduled meeting of 6:30 by
the putting green. It turns out I was 30 minutes early as we were
delayed for course maintenance. Had to shell out $5 to park across the
street for my miscue.
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Hop on; The creek
running through the first, and second fairway turned into a raging
river necessitating cart rides to ford the two. The second green and
third tee was just out of reach of the swift flowing torrent with
cresting anticipated at 2 PM.
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Bleep; One
prominent player, who will be doing TV commentary for the U.
S. Girls' Junior Championship next week, jokingly said she asked
for one free F-Bomb during the telecast. Don't think that request will be
granted.
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What's my name?
After making our fist bird of the day on the tenth (our second nine),
we wound up in the right trees on the next hole. After locating our
pellet, I uttered "If you do something stupid I'll call you
Phil!". A. J. punched out and got it up and down for par instead.
It wasn't the last hole at The Open but was a sweet save none the
less.
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Who needs Madison Avenue?
Randy (Kate Golden's looper) donned a Xango
hat at the turn which prompted a query from Erica Blasberg on the
nature of the product. Instead of going into a drawn out explanation
of this nutritional elixir, Randy just blurted out "It's
good s--t!" Sounds like a winning slogan to me.
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Get in my belly!
Caddies dined "high on the hog" today with grub provided by Smokey
Bones BBQ. Pulled pork, slaw, barbequed beans and chocolate chip
cookies filled our tummies for lunch. Much better than what the
player's were served I heard.
Friday:
Remember the line from Caddyshack? "I don't think the
heavy stuff is gonna start for quite a while". Well it started
not long after they pulled us off the course for the upcoming storm.
We managed to get in eight and a half holes before all hell broke
loose. With the course already saturated and more rain on the way,
play is not scheduled to begin till 11:00 AM tomorrow. Wouldn't be
surprised if this event is cut to 54 holes.
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Tempting fate; Most
of the caderos waited out the fireworks in the caddie shack but a few
lingered under a big tree, just outside, during the onset. With the
possibility of lightning striking at any time, I asked how many bags
would be open if said tree was the target. "Seven" was
Wilksie's response which included Paula Creamer's looper Colin Cann
(on a cell phone to boot). We figured a week and a half of mourning and
she'd be open for Evian!
Saturday: Finished
the second round and close to the third. We have four to play but there's
an hour and a half of tee times behind us. Play resumes at 7:30 tomorrow.
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High-light; Our
ace on the sixth hole from 134 yards out with an eight iron being the
tool of choice. Along with two shots of our score, extra cash from Ashley
Bunch made it a bit sweeter. Those two have a running wager on birds,
eagles and aces and it's $100 for the latter. It has been eight years
since A. J.'s last one, holed down under in Australia.
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Low-light; The triple
we made on the thirteenth with two holes to play. Not going to get
into it.
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Shortest par four ever?
The third tee was close to being overcome by the rising waters so a
decision was made to move it up to the top of the hill and play it
from the ladies tee. 259 yards was the posted measurement and I'm sure
more than one player drove the green. Laura Davies did it in the group
behind us.
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Thanks, but no thanks;
It was touch-and-go for the cut, oscillating between one and two over,
coming down the stretch. But a three putt by Kris Tamulis on her final
hole let all the twos in and now 90 players are fighting for a piece
of the pie.
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Cadero correction;
Motion is not packing it in for good. He's just heading for Asia to
loop. What's that about the grass is always greener?
Sunday: The
way our final round started, I thought we were going to shoot the
temperature! Didn't have to worry much about the heat cause the trees
provided plenty of shade. A. J. finally put the "big dog" back
in its cage, using the three metal off the turf while teeing. Found the
short stuff most of the way after that but the damage had been done.
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Heading over "the
pond"; The final spot to qualify for The British was won
by Jackie Gallagher-Smith over Teresa Lu and Erica Blasberg in a
play-off.
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One down, one to go;
As you may have seen, I'm looping for Bo Bae Song in Evian. It'll be
my first time there and have ICE (Kimmy's cadero) to thank for the
set-up. Just have to find a bag for The British and my dance card will
be filled.
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