20 Dudes. 3 Days. Zero Class.

OK. We don't really have Zero Class (at least not all of us), but the shirts we got for the 2008 golf outing had that phrase on there, and it was pretty funny. I got an invite to participate in this year's outing because some people had moved/dropped out/couldn't make it/etc., and had a great time golfing at Trapper's Turn. We played 36 holes on Friday, 36 holes on Saturday, and 18 holes on Sunday. That is a lot of golf! I had never played 36 holes in a day before, so I wasn't sure how I'd do over the 5 rounds of golf.

The outing was organized primarily by Trav, and many kudos to him for getting it all done! Kurt provided everyone with the great shirts for the outing. I'll have to post a picture of one of the shirts up here at some point. Thanks to Kurt and SmokeStacks, Inc., for providing the shirts for all of us. Please check out his site to see the work he does. Also, Saj provided everyone with some Miller products (cooler, golf balls, golf towel, beer). Thank you very much for that!! Because we had an 8:30am start on Friday we had to leave extremely early that morning. Adam, Bass, Marty, Trav, Vallee, and myself were on the road by about 5:30 or so. Bass has got a sweet conversion van that had a huge flat screen TV along with plenty of space for the 6 of us. It was a nice ride.

We arrived at the course, and found out that we were going to start a little late because of some rain that came through that morning. The rain delay allowed us to run to the hotel and check in, saving some time later on that evening. When we finally got started, I had one of the worst holes I've ever had on the very first hole (Canyon #1). In fact, the first 9 happened to be the worst 9 holes of golf I've had in about 5 years or so. I picked things up on the back (Arbor), and was golfing OK by the time we started our second 18 holes. The second 18 (Canyon/Lake) was significantly easier especially since it was a scramble. I started hitting drives solidly and making golf shots and was feeling good about my golf game. Because of the late start we didn't finish our last hole of golf until about 9:15pm. We had a little bit of fun on the last hole, with our foursome hitting shots simultaneously on the hole.

There was a lot of drinking to be done that night, and when it was time to golf on Saturday I was in rough shape. With the help of some Alleve I was feeling OK by about the 6th hole or so. For the rounds on Saturday we were playing two 2-man best ball matches for the first 18 holes (one match per nine), and the second 18 holes were to be a scramble. The two best golfers in the group of twenty were the team captains, and based on their knowledge of everyone's golf game and the scores shot on Friday morning two teams of ten were formed for the match play. Our matches were split 1 each, with us taking the front nine (Canyon) 2 and 1, and John and Tim taking the back nine (Arbor) 3 and 2. John shot an absolutely incredible 40 on the Arbor nine which pretty much crushed David and me.

The second 18 of the day was the scramble, and I was grouped with Thimmesch, Bucki, and Vallee. We came out of the gate hot, but bogeyed the 9th hole of the Arbor nine to make the turn at 4 under. We started the turn with a couple of birdies on the first three holes, and after making a spectacular putt for birdie with Vallee playing the "Humpty Hump" on his cell phone. We started playing that for all of our shots from that point forward. Because we were the last foursome we were able to find out that the leaders in the clubhouse were at 9 under par. We were at 8 under heading in to the par 5 18th (Lake #9), but after we all chipped a little long from 50 yards none of us were able to bring the birdie home (it would have been an outstanding putt from the back of the fringe if we had), and we finished at 8 under par, tying for second place.

We found out while eating dinner that the match play had ended with my team, Team USA, leading over Team International 6 1/2 to 3 1/2. Sunday's 18 was to be individual matches, with each nine consisting of a match, so 20 points were up for grabs. I was matched up against Dan. We started on the Canyon nine, which I wasn't too excited about since I had scored my poorest nines on the Canyon nine. For the third straight day I played very poorly on Canyon #1, although the 8 I posted on Sunday was the best of the three days. I found myself down 1, but managed to put together a very solid stretch of golf and was able to win the nine 3 and 2. Dan got me on the second nine (Arbor) 2 and 1. Dan made a great up and down on #7 to steal a hole that I thought I would win and then he tried real hard on #8 to let me back in the match, but I couldn't get the job done and was only able to halve the hole. As it turned out, the matches were split 10 points apiece on Sunday giving Team USA the win 16 1/2 to 13 1/2. It was a really good time, and I met a lot of really great guys that I look forward to doing some more golfing with soon!