Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Golf

This past weekend, I journeyed into uncharted waters... a golf tournament.  I am NOT a golfer... despite having an abundance of patience I don't think I could ever play golf and would fully expect a round of golf to bring out my inner...

I have gotten to the point where I can watch golf on TV without complaining, I know some of terminology and can basically follow along.  I do have a few players I like to follow..so what if my favorite one is hot...It helps me pay attention :-)  Outside of eye candy, I do actually thoroughly enjoy most sports, you can catch me watching football, basketball, auto racing and golf any given weekend (mostly football as I am an insane Green Bay Packers fan... no really, I'm serious... INSANE) in addition to the rare moments I can find equestrian events on TV.
Since the PGA Championship was being held right here in our city, is a "major" tournament, and my hubs is a golfer, I decided to check out what live golf is all about...after all he's attended tons of horse shows and equine related events with me (with relative little complaining), so what the hell?

Interesting notes about golf... 
Attending a tournament is kind of like going to an horse show as a spectator.  You should expect LOTS of walking (actually I think it might be worse than XC at Rolex).  Don't expect spectacular food... not much choice and costs a fortune.  There are Porta-Pottys (cleanliness optional). It's a really slow sport...seriously at times it seemed to take forever.  Golf officials and golfers are super anal...they require total silence when preparing for and making a shot, there are officials everywhere to make sure the spectators stay quiet and don't distract the player (like watching Dressage on steroids).  Not only must the spectators be absolutely silent, no one is allowed to take pictures... zip, zero, zilch.  You're not even allowed to bring a camera on the property and the PGA is so serious about no photos taken with cell phones that they even have guys like this 


following the players around the course watching to make sure no pictures are taken.  If they catch someone taking a photo, they can literally kick them out.  This doesn't mean I didn't risk detection by and successfully evade Mobile Device Enforcement to take photos of my fav. Huge rebel, I know! :-)  

Our tickets were for Saturday and Sunday and the weather was crazy both days.  I was literally soaking wet and burning up for good portions of both days.  On both days we had rain delays although Sunday was nearly two hours, a good hour of which we sat out in the rain waiting.  Being the good sport (and horse person) that I am I didn't whine too much.  Turns out it was all worth it... the end was actually exciting because there were 4-5 players battling it out to win or tie and force a play-off and because they were racing darkness trying to finish up.  In the end, Rory McIlroy raised the trophy after storming back from being 3 shots back (see I know enough golf terms to be dangerous) and made his final put in near darkness (I think it was like 9PM or later).  Pretty cool stuff.  



I'd definitely go to another one... but maybe not two days in a row.  Don't look for me to become a golf groupie, you see WAY more of the action on the television than in person.  Back to horses and our regularly scheduled posts tomorrow :-)

6 comments:

  1. What a fun way to spend the weekend. Go on, spill...who is the hot one? ☺

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  2. So, I grew up in Augusta, home of the Masters. I have only ever been once, and that was to a Practice round. Walking around the entire time, I was thinking: could put a jump here, could gallop here, and that would be a nice water feature. This was before I had ever even seen a legit XC course.

    You know, your comment about the price of food surprised me. I knew that there was a lot of talk about the cost of food at the Nationals, but I never really thought much of it. It's really, really cheap. Like the prices haven't changed in years. Beer: $3. Pimento cheese sammich: $1.50.

    I mostly enjoy the atmosphere. :)

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  3. I enjoy playing golf with the husband, and occasional work friend, but I've never been to one of the big tournaments! Very cool.

    Love the irony behind you taking pictures of the man whose job is to stop photo taking! LOL!

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  4. You deserve a patience award.. I don't think I could.

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  5. My dad's side of the family all golf, but I never got excited about it. I went to one of my aunt's tournaments and was scared to even move. It was fun to watch and support her, but I was definitely out of my element.

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    1. I should mention that the few pathetic efforts I made at golf actually did end up with me becoming the female version of Happy Gilmore minus the talent.

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