Happy winter wonderland from the Illinois Valley Country Club golf course!
This has been an abysmal week for golfing in Cave Junction. I called friends in both Grants Pass and Medford and they have been able to get out on their courses and I think I speak for all of us Cave Junction guys in thinking that it stinks that they have no snow once you pass Hayes Hill. I measured 24 inches here at my house on Dick George Road.
However, Danny has a simulator in his workshop and he invited me and Dustin to come try it out last Monday. We got started at about 4 o’clock playing the Coer de Alene course that has the floating island green and the simulator is amazingly precise. I put at least six balls into the lake on that hole, but I learned how to hit a consistent draw shot while doing so. At about 9 o’clock I just happened to glance at my watch and realized we had been playing for 5 hours! You certainly lose track of the time while hitting, kidding around with the guys, sipping beer and eating pepper sticks.
On Wednesday Danny suggested that we invite a few more guys, so Colby, Todd and Troy joined us. Todd is left-handed so we had to move the thingie that measures the ball speed and angle from one side of the hitting mat and to the other every time Todd had a shot, luckily he is pretty accurate so we only had to move it a few times per hole. We hurried as best we could but still ended up playing for almost 5 hours. We played a course in Ireland with some ocean views and hardly any trees so the evening was nice and pleasant. I found a broken ball under the tractor and thought I would see if the machine would measure its spin correctly. The broken ball actually flew 200 yards so that showed that the machine measures the ball speed in the first two feet of flight and then cannot see it after that because a ball with a crack in it definitely will not fly 200 yards. All in all a fun way to waste an evening and get in our desire to hit that dumb little ball.
On Friday evening Scott, Jim, Eugene, Colby and I got together to plan the summer tournaments, talk fertilizer and mowing, plan clubhouse operations and fine tune things that we are doing well but want even better. We have about 15 tournaments planned for this season from March 11 and going all the way until past Labor Day. The Alumni tournament is always fun and we will have the wedding tents set up and a dance band again this year on July 1st. Last year we made a nice amount of money to help get us through the winter and were able to donate $1,000 to the scholarship fund. The Jesse and Mighty memorial tournament had a large group of Millers and we were able to donate another $1,000 to the I.V. wrestling club. The program is so well run and attended, and hopefully it contributed to the high school team’s amazing success at winning the state championship. A huge congrats to those kids and coaches.
Men’s twilight league starts April 17 and 19, so please come and sign up, we would sure like to have the schedules made up early so we can have everything nice and organized before we start.
OGA is now allowing posting of scores so please come in and sign back up for OGA membership.
*Scott and Sue’s birthday tournament is this coming this Saturday, March 11.
*St Patrick’s Day tournament is next week, March 18.
We have a few teams heading up to the new course in Roseburg, Bar Run for a horse-race type tournament. It will have 60 players teeing it off on each of 2 holes, so 30 players on each hole. The format is alternating shot, which is difficult because you’re not used to being in the positions that your partner puts you, in so it throws off your game. The payout is skins and will be very difficult to win as there are 30 teams. They are putting an extra $4,000 of payout and they told us that if they fill the field that they will put in another $4,000 as well. We are bringing some good teams, not my team, but some other good teams. Plus, we are looking forward to meeting some of the guys in Roseburg and seeing some good friends from around our area.
