Sunday afternoon ramblings

Some random followups on golf and the olympics:

1. Finished third in the club championship. I thought I was in the lead after the first round until a 65-year old greenskeeper shot 72 after I left the clubhouse.
So I started 5 back, got to within 3, and then boarded the bogey train for a while and finished third.

The 65-year-old? He finished 9-6-9 on 16, 17, and 18 (par 4-4-5) and finished behind me. Tough, tough, tough to watch it all unfold. I was speechless.

2. Then played at the Ohio Publinx at Cook's Creek. The driver has been my worrisome club all year, so what do I do? I hit 11 of 14 fairways....and shoot 85. Could not hit any irons, and I was off with my pitches. The greens were rock hard, and I had trouble adjusting.

The 2nd round brought the complete opposite - through 11 holes, I hit 4 fairways, but made everything. I had 14 putts through 11 holes and was even for the round.

Then I had a block, leading to a triple - and then couldn't find a swing. Finished 8 over. Ugh. The problem: I have no reliable "pressure" swing anymore - the swing you need just to get the ball out there. I used to have this 230-yard gentle fade that I could atuomatically hit under any situation. Not anymore. Ugh.
The putting was phenomenal - the shortest putt I missed was a downhill 20 footer. Everything inside that was in the hole.

I'm taking a break for a week - to flush the system.

3. This golf pool that Layup and I are in, however - this is starting to be an unhelathy obsession. This pool requires you to pick a golfer for each tournament, and you can only pick a golfer once all season. Out of 120 or so people, Layup and I are 2nd at this point, a mere $1900 back of first.

I feel like a pastor of a Church - my off days are Monday; on Tuesday, it's reasearch day; Wednesday involves a 30-45 minute phone call with Layup as we argue over the pick - and then the tournament starts Thursday.

Our pick this week is Retief Goosen - and the leader (and the person directly behind us) has Phil. Entering the 4th round, Goosen is one back of Phil.

4. Go Ben! If Goosen can't win, let's see the boy from Ostrander win his second major.

5. Olympics fever is in this house now. Two pieces of evidence:

a. I actually had Freddie and Warren watching Women's basketball yesterday - Mali vs New Zealand! They chose to root for the Kiwis and were dancing around the room when they made a 3 pointer.

b. For the opening day of men's basketball, I entered in a 6-team teaser:
Russia
Spain
Croatia
Lithuania
Germany
USA

6-for-6! Winner!

Yes, I am insane.