The Tour

Our golf tour to the Monterey Peninsula was outstanding. Three of the four courses were very challenging, significantly more so than any that we play in or around Bakersfield. The fourth course, Pacific Grove, was not nearly as tough but the back nine, which runs along the ocean, was the most beautiful golf scenery I've ever seen. Deer and Canadian geese roamed the fairways as an added bonus for the blue sky, the even bluer ocean, and the crashing waves that provided a marvelous background rhythm for golf.

It was a perfect day – no fog, no clouds, no wind. The temperature was in the low 60s, allowing the jacket to come off on the second green. The course was very enjoyable and the back nine, in addition to its scenic quality, was a true links layout with rolling topography and ice plant covered sandy dunes providing the lateral trouble instead of the massive, not to mention magnetic, trees that lined the other three courses.

My tour objective was achieved – all my scores remained in double digits. Several of my colleagues suffered from the uncomfortable three-digit fidget – that being the nervous twitch that immediately surfaces when you’re asked how you scored and the next word out of your mouth is “one”. One of our good fellows topped out at 107. On the other end, an equally good fellow bagged a 77. Most of our scores fell comfortably near the midpoint between those two poles. I averaged 94 (plus a little loose change), in spite of a demonic driver that randomly sent my drives anywhere along a 120º arc in front of me, with distances that ranged from 90 to 290 yards. I closed out the tour by shooting an 89 in the last round, with a most enjoyable 41 for the last nine at Pacific Grove. I was so relaxed in that almost hypnotic setting that golf became secondary to the sensory pleasures around me, which resulted in the best nine-hole score I had all weekend. It’s possible that I could learn something from that. It’s not probable; just possible.

The plans are already coming together for the next tour. I’ll be there. Hopefully the exorcism I have planned for my driver will be successful. Hopefully my good colleagues will keep me comfortably in the middle of the pack. Hopefully, nature will once again surround me with scenes that relax and please to the point that good golf comes to the fore simply due to the lack of resistance.

Golfers are naturally hopeful people. They make good colleagues.