Saturday, April 08, 2006

hard to beat free golf ...

A day of golf — good or bad — is better than a day spent doing almost anything else.

When that day of golf is free, it's 10 times better.

My co-worker, friend and frequent golfing companion, Cid, and I found out on Thursday that there were two sponorship openings for a best-ball golf fundraising tournament on Saturday, and we quickly accepted. The tourney was held at one of Guam's better golf courses, LeoPalace Resort, which has about five nine-hole courses, many of them designed by Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. The resort itself hosts what are pretty much the premier sports facilities on the island. It routinely brings in professional teams from Japan and Korea to do spring-training kind of practice.

It's a tough set of courses to play — if your ball gets past the primary cut of rough, it's pretty much gone forever and unfindable; that's how thick and nasty the secondary cut of rough is.

The bad part of all this? Showtime of 7 a.m. with a tee time of 8 a.m. Which meant waking up at 6:30 a.m. Ouch. Which was made worse because despite all my planning and self promising, I didn't get to the weekend edits till after 11 p.m. and didn't finish them and get them mailed out till almost 2 a.m. So, waking up super early after about 4 hours and change of sleep. Yurk.

Cid and I played in foursome with two nice guys — a dentist and a banker. It was a great day. We played best-ball format and ended up shooting a 5-over 77, which could have been much lower. We had a several birdie and par putts lip out or otherwise just barely miss. But it was still a good score for us, and the company was good and the day was gorgeous.

And, oh yes ... IT WAS FREAKING FREE!! LOL

Here's a shot of the clubhouse on one of our final holes. And yes, it was this gorgeous pretty much the whole day. A bit hot, but there were a lot of drinks out on the course, so I stayed hydrated. This time, I DID remember my sunscreen, though I still got a little toasty thanks to the heat index.

We got a nice little ditty bag — they give out little things in a bag for tournament participants. This one was a six-pack cooler bag stuffed with two sleeves of high-end golf balls (one sleeve of Titleists, one of Nike golf balls), two baseball caps with sponsor logos, a little on-the-go coffee/beverage drinking container thing, a pen and a beer cozy. We got that just for showing up and playing! There was a continental breakfast of fruit and assorted breakfast foods, like Chamorro empanada, donuts, chicken kelaguen wraps, etc.

After we were done, it was into the clubhouse for a buffet and the after-golf thing of raffling off prizes and announcing winners. The food was good, which was nice, because sometimes the chow after these fundraising tournaments can be dicey. LOL ... I bought $25 worth of raffle tickets, as did Cid, which got us each six tickets. I ended up winning a dinner for two at a hotel restaurant ($80 value) and a pesticide company's ant-and-roach treatment for a single-dwelling residence ($150 value), which I later sold for $50 cash. Cid won two bottles of pretty decent wine and a couple of beer towels. Not bad for a charitable $25 donation.

Then it was into work for an hour and change to finish up the weekend, then home for a nap, a dinner of three meatballs covered in Parmesan cheese, and, of course, the blog update. LOL

UPDATED GUAM PICS
• Take a look over at DZER's Guam Pics for a bunch of new photos of Guam. Enjoy. :)

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• LeoPalace Resort is almost like a mini sports town. There are hotels, restaurants and condos, plus the finest sports facilities on Guam — pristine baseball fields, soccer fields, golf courses, tennis courts, Olympic-size swimming pools, track and field, workout facilities and more. Several Olympic teams — including U.S. Swimming — have already reserved space to do training and time-zone acculturation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

9 comments:

ArtfulDodger said...

sounds like the (almost) perfect day Dman! Someday I'll have to post my one and only golf story, not pretty.

DZER said...

art: not a sad golf story! could my heart bear it? LOL

DZER said...

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that you have a great day and start feeling better soon ... *smooches*

Madame X said...

mmmmmm, meatballs!
I really love these chatty posts.
It's like being you're neighbor only a bajillion miles away!!

Kisses!

SignGurl said...

I was led astray by the Guam pics and forgot to comment here, lol.

You made money from your winnings? That rocks! Sounds like a great day!

Alex said...

Me no speak golf. But I'm glad you had a cool day all the same. :)

Cha Cha said...

I love the way that you write, DZ. You are always so detailed and deliver those details in such a fun and enticing way. I don't even golf, nor do I know the first thing about it...but I adore coming here and reading your posts about the game. And you always give such fabulous food descriptions! Sometimes, I have to be careful coming around here cos I always leave hungry. I want meatballs!!

DZER said...

madame x: I lurve me some meatballs ... and thanks, neighbor!! *smooch*

signgurl: thanks for visiting the Guam pics page :) ... and yeah, it's nice to make money from raffle prizes LOL

alex: thanks, mate ... it was a fairly brilliant day!

strumpet: aww ... yer gonna make me blush if you keep stroking my .... ego like that ... heh. and I love making readers hungry ... ;)

DZER said...

chrissie: poor chilly on the bus gal ... and it WAS early ... sleep in late, then stay in bed for the day ... Dr. DZER's orders

and the cookies already are gone ... too late to send soup!

*get-well smooches*