Thursday, March 9
"There's a dog licking me - WTF"
Um - ok. Where are you? Jogging? Getting a Sausage McMuffin without telling the group?
"I'm at the table!!!!"
I couldn't get over there right away - since I was busy pouring money down the drain at craps - but Wiz immediately verified. A guy was at the UTH table with a dog - a 10-15 pound toy breed - and said he was keeping it for his girlfriend/wife. This dog is the medical companion for the lady - I guess she needed it for mental comfort. (Cue the millennial jokes now).
(Actually, maybe a comfort dog would do us all good when we go into the Salon.....)
The Mirage employees all gleefully petted the dog - the dealers loved it. Layup was livid. He got the pit boss over and asked "Do you seriously let dogs in here at the table". Yes, the answer came - proudly. So Layup - and a few others in the group, like Mike D - played UTH with the dog licking Layup's leg every few minutes. I'm sure the mood there was wonderful. And - as I read the texts - it seems that "dog boy" hit a straight flush at the table with Mike D and Layup. Extra pain!
The golf and atmosphere at Shadow was much, much better this year than it was a few years ago when we played. Maybe playing it when you are not sleep deprived helped. We had 6 of us - and split up into 3 2-man team, each in opposite groups. I can't even remember the teams now - I think I drew Layup. The course was fantastic - as many people say, it's crazy that we have a hole like this one in the Vegas desert. So artificial, yet it looks so natural.
My golf was good - for about 13 holes, then everything fell apart. The one negative to the round was the caddy. It got off to a bad start on #2 - I had about a 50 footer for birdie; I left it 6-7 feet to the short and right. It was a tricky downhiller for par.
The caddy gave me the line - I think I hit the line, at the right speed. I felt good as soon as I stroked the putt......halfway there, the caddy opens his mouth. "Nice putt! Nice par!"
The ball, of course, did a 90 degree turn and missed the hole.
The last one was on #16 - a longish par 5 with a wide fairway - but if you miss the fairway, you were dead. I was struggling and hit a bad banana ball that started left and was moving right.
"Good drive, should be in the fairway" said the caddie.
The ball hit the right side of the fairway, kicked down into an impossible lie in the rough. I barely made double. I was so pissed.
I felt better on 18 as I was the only one to finish the hole as the others (my opponents) all found water at least once. Routine par for me!
Highlight of the round was this excellent layup shot by Don on 18. No, this is not a drop - this is where the ball came to rest on 18.
Bottom line - loved Shadow this year. I was a bit apprehensive after the 2013 (?) trip - but I played decent, course was fantastic (better than I remember), and the drinks were good. We got back to the homestead around 5 and went straight to the UTH table - all 6 of us played UTH for a good 3 hours until dinner; I got crushed in that evening session.
Dinner that night was at Japonais in the Mirage; Layup earned a free dinner as he was the "1" from the 1-6 parlay yesterday - we treated him to dinner at Japonais, but I think he was expecting something else. This - and a parlay ruling we will talk about tomorrow - requires some more details on how the parlay works. Where can the winner "cash" his dinner?
Back to the UTH table after dinner for more UTH fun. It was about now where Mike A started pulling hands out with regularity on the river. There were multiple time I can recall - 10? 12? - where the flop does nothing for him; the 2 river cards are exposed and then we hear a "oh! I have a flush!". The two river cards made a total of 3 spades on the board, and he just happened to have 2 more in his hand. Or the river cards filled in a gutshot straight for him.
Near the end, we have this hand - of course the 8 and Q of hearts were on the river.....
It was a good session; I made a little bit and I think others made a whole lot more. Layup and Wiz left to head into the salon later that night. I'm not sure exactly what was happening, but Wiz almost got into a fight with one of the ConAg expo attendees as the person wanted to watch Wiz's blackjack play - and I guess was leaning on Wiz's chair. I need more details of this in the comments.
Anyway - the last text of the night was this picture, with the comment: "Here is a man on tilt....."
The 2 days of exquisite golf starts today! Wiz and his connections set up rounds for us at Shadow Creek for Thursday and then the annual Southern Highlands round on Friday. This is starting to become a primary focus of the trip instead of just side diversion. And with Layup now returning to the links this year - all of us participated!
But first - before golf - we found out something new about the operating policies at the Mirage. Our tee time for Shadow was around 11 - our departure time from the casino was about 10 - so plenty of time for early gambling.
The notes from this morning were a bit fuzzy - I see that I had my morning craps session, alone, which was a loser. The group starting getting texts from Layup about a dog.
"There's a dog licking me - WTF"
Um - ok. Where are you? Jogging? Getting a Sausage McMuffin without telling the group?
"I'm at the table!!!!"
 |
| Dogs now welcome at UTH! |
(Actually, maybe a comfort dog would do us all good when we go into the Salon.....)
The Mirage employees all gleefully petted the dog - the dealers loved it. Layup was livid. He got the pit boss over and asked "Do you seriously let dogs in here at the table". Yes, the answer came - proudly. So Layup - and a few others in the group, like Mike D - played UTH with the dog licking Layup's leg every few minutes. I'm sure the mood there was wonderful. And - as I read the texts - it seems that "dog boy" hit a straight flush at the table with Mike D and Layup. Extra pain!
The golf and atmosphere at Shadow was much, much better this year than it was a few years ago when we played. Maybe playing it when you are not sleep deprived helped. We had 6 of us - and split up into 3 2-man team, each in opposite groups. I can't even remember the teams now - I think I drew Layup. The course was fantastic - as many people say, it's crazy that we have a hole like this one in the Vegas desert. So artificial, yet it looks so natural.
My golf was good - for about 13 holes, then everything fell apart. The one negative to the round was the caddy. It got off to a bad start on #2 - I had about a 50 footer for birdie; I left it 6-7 feet to the short and right. It was a tricky downhiller for par.
 |
| Shadow #17 |
The caddy gave me the line - I think I hit the line, at the right speed. I felt good as soon as I stroked the putt......halfway there, the caddy opens his mouth. "Nice putt! Nice par!"
The ball, of course, did a 90 degree turn and missed the hole.
The last one was on #16 - a longish par 5 with a wide fairway - but if you miss the fairway, you were dead. I was struggling and hit a bad banana ball that started left and was moving right.
"Good drive, should be in the fairway" said the caddie.
The ball hit the right side of the fairway, kicked down into an impossible lie in the rough. I barely made double. I was so pissed.
I felt better on 18 as I was the only one to finish the hole as the others (my opponents) all found water at least once. Routine par for me!
Highlight of the round was this excellent layup shot by Don on 18. No, this is not a drop - this is where the ball came to rest on 18.
Bottom line - loved Shadow this year. I was a bit apprehensive after the 2013 (?) trip - but I played decent, course was fantastic (better than I remember), and the drinks were good. We got back to the homestead around 5 and went straight to the UTH table - all 6 of us played UTH for a good 3 hours until dinner; I got crushed in that evening session.
Dinner that night was at Japonais in the Mirage; Layup earned a free dinner as he was the "1" from the 1-6 parlay yesterday - we treated him to dinner at Japonais, but I think he was expecting something else. This - and a parlay ruling we will talk about tomorrow - requires some more details on how the parlay works. Where can the winner "cash" his dinner?
 |
| Mr. River comes through |
Near the end, we have this hand - of course the 8 and Q of hearts were on the river.....
 |
| He's on tilt.... |
Anyway - the last text of the night was this picture, with the comment: "Here is a man on tilt....."
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