SBS OPEN 

TURTLE BAY

OAHU HAWAII

My player this week is Giulia Sergas.

Sunday: Spent the night at the Hampton Inn in Phoenix in anticipation of tomorrows flight. I invited Woody to stay the night saving him a long trip in the morning. Made it to the airport with time to spare and ran into a few other caddies and players on the same flight. 

Woody came through with an appropriate pay-back for the room by finagling exit row seats on the flight. We were the envy up our packed Hawaiian Air flight. Occupying two of the middle row seats, our stretched out legs couldn't even reach the seat in front of us. Next best thing to first class. The third seat was had by a Hawaiian Air employee who clued us in on a few tidbits. One was that for only $250 extra, paid the day of your flight, you can get into first class. We left late due to a computer glitch that held up boarding but still arrived a15 minutes early. Must have had light head winds.

Upon arrival, we secured our rental car and headed for the condo. A stop at the Food Land for some essentials preceded our check in. If you've never been to Hawaii, be prepared for sticker shock when you get the grocery bill. OUCH!

I still didn't have a job lined up so a trip to the club house was next on my agenda. Hooked up with some old friends but no luck on a loop.

Monday: Plenty of opportunities for a qualifier job but, with most players arriving today, I passed on the chance. Good thing too. Donna (Wanna) Earley rolled in ,and after exchanging pleasantries, informed me of the dilemma of Giulia Sergas. She just split with her caddie Dale Jones and had her dad as a back-up. Not exactly what she wanted. Minutes later Giulia arrived and I was in.

After stopping back at the condo for lunch, I made a bee line to get the course walked. All the qualifiers went off the first tee so there was no rush. It was too late to get off the back so the front was my only option. The timing was perfect. The last group finished just as I got to the eighteenth tee.

Even though I snagged a bag, I found out later that all was not right. Giulia was still awaiting the arrival of her clubs. You see, she began her trip to Hawaii from her home in Italy and  multiple flights combined with extended layovers stretched her trek to thirty hours! Somewhere along the way the Giulia and her sticks were separated. She was informed that they would arrive by ten in the evening but her trip to the airport was for naught. They were a no-show.

Tuesday: We met at the hotel around eight and planned a strategy. First was a talk with the Ping rep to secure another set of clubs just in case. Delivery was  promised for tomorrow. We then headed to the pro shop to see if a driver was available for a stint on the range. Picked up a demo Taylor Made but it wasn't necessary. Ping had a few of their own on the range and Giulia found one she liked. Next was the putter. She uses a Ray Cook and as luck would have it, found one on the putting green. Two down and twelve to go. After hitting and putting a few she spotted some wedges form an obscure company called Fourteen. Snagged a couple of those and now we're down to ten. The next possible sighting of her original set will be at five this evening. We'll see.

• Where's the beef? Players Christina Kim, Lorie Kane and Dina Ammaccapane have trimmed down quite a bit. Christina said she's clocking around nine miles a day with her jogging routine. Not to be outdone, caderos Jeff Jones (Shadow) and Louie Paolini must have been substituting Slim Fast for their usual fare as they have also dropped a few pants sizes.

• Who's on the line? I usually do not get political but the the latest events concerning the FISA Court has got my goat. Consider this; Electronic ease dropping intercepted a possible coded message regarding an immanent attack by terrorists. The information is submitted to the FISA Court but a judge rejects your assertion and rules against any further listening. As the sitting president, what would you do? Ignore the court's ruling and keep listening in an effort to thwart the attack (you may be wrong) or agree with the court and refuse to violate someone's civil rights? It's very easy to sit back and say our Constitution is sacrosanct but, you must remember, we are at war. Every war-time President has taken extraordinary steps to protect the citizens of the United States. George Bush is no different. 

• While I'm on a role; Did you know that the FDIC is encouraging mortgages for illegal aliens? You heard right This is part of what I found. "Since illegal aliens do not have a credit history, they need only supply the ITIN or a matricula consular card along with proof of income for a period of two years and taxes paid on those wages. Some banks also require history of rent and utility payments. After that however, illegals get the same terms with no penalties as any U.S. citizen or legal resident does. In addition they may later seek a home equity loan like anyone else." ARE WE NUTS! What part of "illegal alien" don't they understand? There, I've said my piece.

Wednesday: Can't believe I forgot to say ALOHA! Not a very classy way to start this season's updates-just jumping right into it-but now I wish to welcome everyone to The Caddie Corner for 2006. For many it's been a long off season and I'm sure we're all ready to take on new challenges. Plenty of unfamiliar faces abound for both players and caddies. Name tags should be mandatory for the first month.

The clubs arrived last evening and I'm sure Giulia slept a little easier. The first pro-am time was 7:00 AM so we had to tee off well before that. Tough to follow the ball in the dark but it was necessary for the first couple of shots. We played by ourselves and was the last off so plenty of time to practice was afforded. Giulia has an odd practice routine with hardly any putting but plenty of chipping. By the time we left, our once non-existent set of clubs had grown to eighteen. That's a tough haul.

• Who's that? If you have difficulty finding Heather Bowie's name on the roster try Heather Young. She's taken her married name. 

• First casualties? Kim Williams couldn't finish her practice round yesterday suffering with a sore neck and Michelle Estill may have nixed her chances for this week by slamming the shuttle van door on her right hand this morning. 

• I know we're at the beach but do the have to supply the caddies with beach towels to work with? Any bigger and we could use them to parasail! Smaller ones are promised for tomorrow.

Wayne Uieda (Sansei) and 'Coffee Joe' Connolly demonstrate.

• With it being the first event of the year, the practice facilities are getting quite a work out. At times the putting green seems to have more caddies than players.

Must be giving out free food.

• If you must start the season somewhere why not Hawaii?

 View from the player's hotel.

Thursday: Overnight storms and the shower that hit just before tee off pushed our time back from 7:10 to eight bells. A glorious day followed with plenty of sunshine and moderate winds.

Started shaky climbing to three over within a few holes but got it back to one by the turn. A long story short, we finished +2 with all but one shot attributed to poor putting. For some reason Giulia switched to a shorter putter (remember our club fiasco) and must have thrown her off. Back to the old standby tomorrow.

• Michelle Estill managed to finish her round with the sore paw. Shot +3. No bad for a gimp as I told her afterward.

• Another name change is Nadina Taylor. Now a married as Nadina Night.

• I made a note of something to write about but can't read my own writing! Maybe it'll come to me.

• Lisa Kiggens is back out looping for A. J. Eathorne for a few weeks. She had a long string of made cuts last year so we'll start the 'Lisa watch' this week.

Friday: Discounting the two brief showers we played through it was an absolutely perfect day. An absence of even a breath of wind and the field took full advantage. It was lights out.

Our position was precarious in the early going rinsing our Titleist on both six and seven. Managed to make bogie on each which now had us missing tomorrow's play. But Giulia pulled it together and her putter came through Finished with a respectable -2 for the day.

• Never seen this before but we started the day one shot more than what we actually carded yesterday. The board had us +3 instead of +2. A quick scan of the online scoring showed a bogie on the third instead of the par we made. It took thirteen holes before an official clarified the error by checking yesterday's card.

• Kathryn Marshall is now Kathryn Imrie for the opposite reason as the other two changes.

• Seems Lisa Kiggens earned her keep for the week. She executed a raid on a port-a-let when the Charmin in their condo ran out. Unfortunately, she can't start a cut string this week. A. J. didn't make it.

• Returning from the range a couple days back, we spotted an unusual creature scampering across the road. Our driver recognized it as a mongoose which was imported many years ago to control the rat population on the island. One problem though, the rats venture out in the evening and the mongoose during the day! Another fine mess they got us into.

Saturday: Couldn't get anything going but still shot -1. Not a bad start for the year.

Well it's on to Ko Olina for The Fields Open. My updates may delayed due to a lack of internet service. Will have to scrounge for a free Wi-Fi. If I just had a media badge.

• Get a gander at this; A couple of geese have staked out the par three 13th as their home turf so Tommy Grogan (Jean Bartholomew's looper) presented an extra special treat to one of them yesterday. It was a Nature Valley crunchy granola bar that was given out on the first and tenth tees. It was quite a sight watching this toothless avian devouring the Oats 'n Honey morsel. Eventually got it all down without gagging.

• Fanless in Hawaii; The non-existent gallery would get a boost if the past practice of our original Hawaiian tournament, The Kemper Open, was followed. Just give the tickets away and let the people enjoy. Giulia noted that they couldn't even pay for the port-o-let rentals with the revenue obtained at the gate.

• Salute; Got to try this one. One of Giulia's favorite drinks is an espresso topped off with a generous portion of Grappa. Puts her in a very good mood, so she says.

• Dough-girl; The boys in our condo dined on homemade chocolate chip cookies compliments of the flour dusted hands of Maggie Will. They earned a 9.5 rating on our decadence meter. Betty Crocker has nothing on Maggie.

• A ride in the park; Rules official Charlie Williams clued me in the the Mexico City situation. We're all on buggies, due to the severity of the terrain and time constraints, and entrance and exit gates will be indicated for each hole. We get to drive right to the ball as The Champions Tour did when they played there. He's the advance official  and will also be monitoring fairway watering so they don't get too soft for the carts. Charlie gets to work both Hawaii and Mexico events. Sounds like a 'heaven 'n hell' scenario to me.