A Trail of Tears

If you have ever questioned yourself about what your personal limits are, where your breaking point is, how much can you possibly take - then you understand what I am about to tell you. The following story is true, none of the names have been changed to protect the innocent. There are no innocent parties involved in this story. They are all guilty. Funny, if you rearrange the letters of guilty it spells, "I glut y", which in latin means "I can't believe I overdosed on golf".

Stay with me here. I had an idea a while ago that for my brother-in-law's last birthday before he has twins and can no longer leave the house, we would take a golf trip down to St. George. We would take only the necessities; golf clubs, golf balls, change of clothes, 2 friends who are equally addicted to golf, and Advil. James Jones and Ray Davis. It was a semi-surprise. But I gave Matt plenty of notice, although apparently not enough notice to myself to get my game gathered up, packed and ready. We would play as much golf as we could possibly handle. Maybe, to be proven later, more than we could handle. We set off on Thursday, Wendy's Drive-thru in hand, for the Holy Grail of Golf - The Uninterrupted, Unadulterated, Unbridled All-Male Golf Weekend. Optimism flowed like truck-stop Nacho Cheese through our heavily laden Honda Mini Van as we talked about the days and hours ahead. We had planned to golf 18 when we got there, 36 on Friday and 36 on Saturday before returning home to display our bronze tanned skin and our career low scores. That meant that we were planning on golfing more than twice as many holes as hours that we would be there. Interesting calculations if you put the pencil to that. In summary, we would live golf.

Somewhere in the calculations, however, we forgot to include a number of important factors.

1. 100+ degree weather
2. Time to practice and/or warm-up
3. 100+ degree weather
4. Time to settle down after your worst round of the year
5. 100+ degree weather
6. Time to step back and gather yourself after your second worst round of the year

I was a monkey out there. I was into everything. My driver was in the bag, then it was out. My confidence was in the bag, then it was out. It was way out. Golf is such a mental game, and I was as unstable as I could be. The only club that I didn't bend over my knee was my putter. It was the one thing that kept me from the water hazard. To those of you who don't golf, or may not golf a lot, you may not understand what this all means. Let me put it in terms some may relate to. It's like getting ready for a big bridal shower that you are in charge of. All the people that matter will be there. You have planned everything down to the center-pieces. The food is perfect, you are having it catered. The games are perfect, you have an all male review. The gifts are perfect, you got a list of where they are registered and got it to all that are in attendance. You even decorated the thing perfectly to match the bride's eye color - which happens to be the color of the wedding, pale blue. It just can't get any better. Bridal Magazine has just called and they are putting you on the cover. Then, just before everyone showed up, you got 5 shots of novacaine in your mouth and spent the entire time bumbling when you spoke, dribbling drink and food all over the front of you, wanting so badly to communicate but finding it difficult to do so without weeping. What's worse is that the whole group, who seem to be communicating fine, not spilling their drinks, and have seemingly mastered the art of eating as well, can't seem to understand what is wrong with you. Does that make sense? Maybe that puts it into perspective.

The best part of that scenario, though, was that you are at the party, you are having an enjoyable time, and you loved being with those that were there. And, you can't wait to do it all over again, because the next time you will not have 5 shots of novacaine before you go.

We golfed 84 holes, including about 2 in complete darkness. We had to use my cell phone with the display light on to see where the hole was. I parred that hole, by the way. There were bright spots. But golf is that way. Some moments, your riding on top of the golf cart - the next minute you are backing over yourself and your clubs. I guess it's what draws so many, because without the moments of highs, it would just be 5 hours of root canal after root canal.

One other bright spot, amoung many, was the discovery of Tom's Deli in St. George. Just off of Bluff Street about across from the Anderson Lumber / Abbey Inn in a little strip mall is a little slice of deli heaven. Incredible sandwiches. Just enough to take the pain away and give you the strength to go out and face another round.