Thursday, March 14
So I may not have fully described how bad the weather was in Vegas this week. Looking through the text messages, it's clear that on Wednesday that the temperature never broke 60 --- and the winds were consistently at 20 mph. There was no one on the course with us on Wednesday - which helped the pace of play, but the weather wore us all down on the back nine.
And the weather was the main reason why I backed out of the round on Thursday. I was tired after Wednesday - and wanted to save myself for Southern Highlands on Friday - and our tee time was like 8:00 on Thursday morning, when the temperature was projected to be about 40 degrees. The only issue was that Thursday's round was at Royal Links, a course I do love and would have wanted to play - and the breakfast burrito! Although this year, the reviews from the breakfast burrito seemed muted at best - was the recipe changed?
Apparently, this was the best decision I made for the trip. At lunch, there was so much complaining from the group about the conditions- especially on the front nine - due to the cold and the wind. I don't know if anyone broke 80 at Royal Links.
Got the parlay in at the Mirage book that morning - no one picked any wacko teams - and then realized we picked 7 favorites. Oh yeah, this will work out fine.
I intended to have the morning be a spa day - I scheduled a massage and wanted to use the hot tub a lot. Got to my massage when the therapist asked about any medical conditions I had. I told her about my cancer - she asked about chemo. I said yes, I was undergoing chemo at the time.....and that was the wrong answer. She said policy is that they can't give massages to any active chemo patients - the massage could activate the chemo and make it more powerful. So - I was escorted back into the spa.
(I asked my oncologist about this later - and he said this is not a worry for normal massages. It could be an issue for deep tissue massage, but for normal massages, this is BS. So I'll take a doctor's note with me for Vegas 2020).
I spent about 90 minutes in the spa, falling asleep in the lawn chairs in between sessions in the hot tub rooting against Seton Hall. Nice to be in a 100 degree hot tub while the others are playing golf in 50 degree temps and 20 mph winds!
Got out of the hot tub and went to the UTH table to watch basketball after that relaxing session. About 30 minutes in, I was dealt a pair of red 7's. All in for 4 times!
The flop came - 7 spades, 7 clubs, 9 spades. Flopped a quad! Yes, of course, I screamed with delight.
The river was the 10 and Jack of spades. No, there's no way...….
And of course the dealer had the 8 of spades. My flopped quads lost to a straight flush. Thank God it was only a $15 hand....that was a swing of about $900.
After that - I had to change tables and head to the other side of the casino with..... Gary, the infamous UTH dealer. He's starting to be my nemesis - I just can't beat him, and session 1 with Gary was no different as I suffered a serious loss.
Joined everyone at BLT for lunch after everyone came back from Royal Links, and then there was another afternoon UTH session where Wiz got a tray of drinks dumped on him. That meant it was a good time for a nap for me. After the nap, it was time for the first salon session of the trip - Baccarat! Layup and I went in there before dinner ---- and the luck did not change. There wasn't any sort of runs to get excited about.
I think I was incorrect in the last post and the Lavo dinner was tonight instead of Wednesday - which would make more sense given the golf schedules. There was one last UTH session after dinner - which was finally a profitable one for me - and then an early bed time. Southern Highland awaited in the morning!
Friday, March 15
Most of the day was covered with my favorite golf course and outing - Southern Highlands! After getting the morning parlay in - at least we took 2 underdogs today instead of 7 favorites - it was off to Southern Highlands for the annual trip - this time paid for by Layup! We had two full foursomes for the outing, as Layup's friend Jared joined us from Southern California for the rest of the trip.
The weather was a little better - not as cold as Thursday or even Wednesday - but we did run into a frost delay. For the 8 of us, we set up some elaborate gambling games - each person in the group had a partner in the other group for a best ball competition --- the gimmick here is that you had no idea what your partner scored on a hole, so you just hoped your partner bogied if you were making an X.
We tried to get some sort of pro-am competition going, with our scores combined with the golfer we picked in the fantasy one-and-done golf league....that didn't work out so well as the computations got to be a little massive. Maybe it was my chemo brain that caused a lot of confusion. Not sure if we will do this again.
Layup, Mike A, Jared and I were in the second group - and before we knew it, we fell behind the group ahead of us. It didn't help that on the first hole, I was the only one to actually complete the hole. Don't worry, my X's came later on the back nine.
However, the whole experience was kind of ruined that day by our group caddy. I forget what his name was...but holy crap, was he bad. There was some misreads on the front nine on the greens - which is forgivable. However, both Layup and I were given bad yardages multiple times during the round....we are talking 10-15 yards off. Layup hit a few great shots that should have been right on the pin, but the yardage was off and he flew the green.
The caddy gooched me at least twice, saying great drive as the ball was clearly heading for a fairway bunker. This caddy seemed to not know the course at all and the position of the bunkers - even though he said he was a low single digit handicap and caddied here for a few years. I stopped talking to him on about the 14th hole; Layup went radio silent shortly after. We came to the 17th - the long par 3 over water - and I think there was confusion on the yardage the caddy gave Layup. He may have given the yardage to the pin, where Layup wanted the yardage to cover the water; Layup hit a nice 4 iron that flew the green by a good 20 yards. Holy crap, I thought someone would be pushed in the lake.
But all in all, I loved the course (again) and played as decent as possible given my condition. And Wiz and I seemed to win a little bit of money from our partnership.
Dinner that night was at Carbone's at the Aria casino. Great restaurant, great food. I wished I could have enjoyed it more. The alcohol flowed freely - and I learned that the non-alcoholic drinks were made at a separate bar than the other drinks. So while everyone get quick refills on their cocktails, my Arnold Palmers sat at some lonely secondary bar and took 10 minutes to deliver to me. But- the food was excellent and the scenery - holy crap! We sat in the center of the dining room at a table of 8, and all around us were booths of 2 facing us. The booths, of course, were filled with young couple all dressed to the nines and not much was left to the imagination. It was hard to be discreet to point at all the various couples.
We walked around the casino for a while, threatening to gamble there that night - but never did. Lot of tables, lot of room - not sure why we didn't jump in. It was a Friday night, so the limits were a little high, but still...… The casino seemed great and spacious - and talk started about moving the trip to the Aria next year. Who knows? I have no idea how the rooms are - but it could be a good choice just for the casino alone.
We got a taxi back to the Mirage where there was a UTH session and, of course, a Face Up Pai Gow session. I think there was 3 of us at Pai Gow when some drunk idiot (not in our group) spilled his daiquiri all over the table. That was a sign for me to head up for the night. I think there was a side trip with Layup and Jared later that night...…..
So I may not have fully described how bad the weather was in Vegas this week. Looking through the text messages, it's clear that on Wednesday that the temperature never broke 60 --- and the winds were consistently at 20 mph. There was no one on the course with us on Wednesday - which helped the pace of play, but the weather wore us all down on the back nine.
And the weather was the main reason why I backed out of the round on Thursday. I was tired after Wednesday - and wanted to save myself for Southern Highlands on Friday - and our tee time was like 8:00 on Thursday morning, when the temperature was projected to be about 40 degrees. The only issue was that Thursday's round was at Royal Links, a course I do love and would have wanted to play - and the breakfast burrito! Although this year, the reviews from the breakfast burrito seemed muted at best - was the recipe changed?
 |
Parlay with 7 favorites?
Guaranteed loser
|
Got the parlay in at the Mirage book that morning - no one picked any wacko teams - and then realized we picked 7 favorites. Oh yeah, this will work out fine.
I intended to have the morning be a spa day - I scheduled a massage and wanted to use the hot tub a lot. Got to my massage when the therapist asked about any medical conditions I had. I told her about my cancer - she asked about chemo. I said yes, I was undergoing chemo at the time.....and that was the wrong answer. She said policy is that they can't give massages to any active chemo patients - the massage could activate the chemo and make it more powerful. So - I was escorted back into the spa.
(I asked my oncologist about this later - and he said this is not a worry for normal massages. It could be an issue for deep tissue massage, but for normal massages, this is BS. So I'll take a doctor's note with me for Vegas 2020).
I spent about 90 minutes in the spa, falling asleep in the lawn chairs in between sessions in the hot tub rooting against Seton Hall. Nice to be in a 100 degree hot tub while the others are playing golf in 50 degree temps and 20 mph winds!
 |
| Hall of fame of worst UTH bad beats |
The flop came - 7 spades, 7 clubs, 9 spades. Flopped a quad! Yes, of course, I screamed with delight.
The river was the 10 and Jack of spades. No, there's no way...….
And of course the dealer had the 8 of spades. My flopped quads lost to a straight flush. Thank God it was only a $15 hand....that was a swing of about $900.
After that - I had to change tables and head to the other side of the casino with..... Gary, the infamous UTH dealer. He's starting to be my nemesis - I just can't beat him, and session 1 with Gary was no different as I suffered a serious loss.
Joined everyone at BLT for lunch after everyone came back from Royal Links, and then there was another afternoon UTH session where Wiz got a tray of drinks dumped on him. That meant it was a good time for a nap for me. After the nap, it was time for the first salon session of the trip - Baccarat! Layup and I went in there before dinner ---- and the luck did not change. There wasn't any sort of runs to get excited about.
I think I was incorrect in the last post and the Lavo dinner was tonight instead of Wednesday - which would make more sense given the golf schedules. There was one last UTH session after dinner - which was finally a profitable one for me - and then an early bed time. Southern Highland awaited in the morning!
Friday, March 15
Most of the day was covered with my favorite golf course and outing - Southern Highlands! After getting the morning parlay in - at least we took 2 underdogs today instead of 7 favorites - it was off to Southern Highlands for the annual trip - this time paid for by Layup! We had two full foursomes for the outing, as Layup's friend Jared joined us from Southern California for the rest of the trip.
 |
| Another 3-4 losing parlay |
The weather was a little better - not as cold as Thursday or even Wednesday - but we did run into a frost delay. For the 8 of us, we set up some elaborate gambling games - each person in the group had a partner in the other group for a best ball competition --- the gimmick here is that you had no idea what your partner scored on a hole, so you just hoped your partner bogied if you were making an X.
We tried to get some sort of pro-am competition going, with our scores combined with the golfer we picked in the fantasy one-and-done golf league....that didn't work out so well as the computations got to be a little massive. Maybe it was my chemo brain that caused a lot of confusion. Not sure if we will do this again.
Layup, Mike A, Jared and I were in the second group - and before we knew it, we fell behind the group ahead of us. It didn't help that on the first hole, I was the only one to actually complete the hole. Don't worry, my X's came later on the back nine.
 |
Where is my partner aiming?
|
The caddy gooched me at least twice, saying great drive as the ball was clearly heading for a fairway bunker. This caddy seemed to not know the course at all and the position of the bunkers - even though he said he was a low single digit handicap and caddied here for a few years. I stopped talking to him on about the 14th hole; Layup went radio silent shortly after. We came to the 17th - the long par 3 over water - and I think there was confusion on the yardage the caddy gave Layup. He may have given the yardage to the pin, where Layup wanted the yardage to cover the water; Layup hit a nice 4 iron that flew the green by a good 20 yards. Holy crap, I thought someone would be pushed in the lake.
But all in all, I loved the course (again) and played as decent as possible given my condition. And Wiz and I seemed to win a little bit of money from our partnership.
Dinner that night was at Carbone's at the Aria casino. Great restaurant, great food. I wished I could have enjoyed it more. The alcohol flowed freely - and I learned that the non-alcoholic drinks were made at a separate bar than the other drinks. So while everyone get quick refills on their cocktails, my Arnold Palmers sat at some lonely secondary bar and took 10 minutes to deliver to me. But- the food was excellent and the scenery - holy crap! We sat in the center of the dining room at a table of 8, and all around us were booths of 2 facing us. The booths, of course, were filled with young couple all dressed to the nines and not much was left to the imagination. It was hard to be discreet to point at all the various couples.
We walked around the casino for a while, threatening to gamble there that night - but never did. Lot of tables, lot of room - not sure why we didn't jump in. It was a Friday night, so the limits were a little high, but still...… The casino seemed great and spacious - and talk started about moving the trip to the Aria next year. Who knows? I have no idea how the rooms are - but it could be a good choice just for the casino alone.
We got a taxi back to the Mirage where there was a UTH session and, of course, a Face Up Pai Gow session. I think there was 3 of us at Pai Gow when some drunk idiot (not in our group) spilled his daiquiri all over the table. That was a sign for me to head up for the night. I think there was a side trip with Layup and Jared later that night...…..
No comments:
Post a Comment