Doug on Miami

My trip to Miami.

Not quite a summer vacation, I guess, since it's not summer anymore and it wasn't even all that hot in Miami, but it seemed to take a long damned time, especially considering we're still driving home. We stayed last night (at the twine ball inn...) in Vero Beach, which ain't very far from Miami, but we were both dead tired and Todd hurt his ankle but never really iced it down (about 5 minutes worth rightbefore he went to bed), so that's as far as we got.

So we're heading back to Atlanta today and I'm trying to write something down about whatever I feel like writing about. And I'm not sure what that is.

Climo won this weekend by 4 shots over Cam, Ron Russell was third and Worm was fourth. I was not fifth.(I was going to be done listing results but since I made my traditional "Doug Sucks" joke about fifth place I feel I should point out that Al Schack was the actual 5th place finisher...). Juliana won the women by a bunch but the 2nd through 5th was a total of about 5 strokes. Deb Renner was 2nd, Nadine Larkin (the huggin'-est woman in the west) was 3rd, Sue Stephens was 4th, and Lesli was 5th. I won a dollar from Lesli, although I figure we'll go double or nothing on it in Augusta... and if I win we'll keep it at a dollar. It's all about the bet. Not a great way to get rich, I'll grant you, but... [Editor's note: She paid up, despite my protestations, at USDGC]

This was the first tournament of the year for me where I threw ok. Starting at Melbourne (that's in May, for you calendarically challenged folk) I started having head problems with my drives (backhand drives, my forehands were fine) and it reached its low point during the first round of Kansas City where I just couldn't even throw backhand... then a similar low point during the whole damn Daytona tournament... after which I stopped playing for a couple months and completely changed the runup of my drive and the grip I use. Anyway, that was great this weekend. I didn't always throw them where I wanted, but when I didn't it was physical problems not mental, so that was a relief.

Ooh! During this touranament I had 3 firsts. I threw my first tomahawk drive (and, according to John E McCray almost aced it). I hit my first turbo putt (I'd had 2 just miss in Melbourne and one in Daytona), incidentally it was from that tomahawk drive. I also hit my first real forehand putt using my new special made-in-america-by-doug-himself forehand putting grip, which I bet isn't used by anyone else in the whole world. So that (that being plural in this case) was cool.

Todd didn't play at all, instead finding a new calling as tournament scorekeeper and part time tournament director. Todd claims he got the board done in record time...

Anyway, there was a bit o' rain on Saturday and the Amelia Earhart course (it's hard not to write "earnhardt" there even though I'm not even close to being a racing fan) got buried. Water everywere. Eventually that water all drained into the lake, which rose a wholebunch and buried a couple tee pads and put baskets that had been 15 or 20 or 25 feet from the water more like 2 or 3 or 4 feet from the water. The 4th round on hole 10 I threw a great drive that landed all of 8 feet from the basket, except it was out of bounds and since I threw it as a forehand hyzer it had never come in bounds so I had to take it back near the tee pad. Which was a bit aggravating. Anyway, our 4th round started with a bang as Jorge took an 8 on the first hole while I threw the world's worst upshot to turn an easy 3 into a 4 and Robert took a double circle 5 (not a common score, huh?). My first 4 holes were 4, 4, 5, 4... on a course I shot 1 over in the morning despite a 6 and 3 ridiculous bogeys. Anyway... I proceeded to turn an easy 3 on 18 (or at least an easy 4 and chance for a 3) into a 5. I suck.

The 4th round Worm had ELEVEN (I was going to type it in numerals but it's easier to give emphasis to letters since you can capitalize them) birdies and ended up 2 down. He had 11 birdies (as I believe I mentioned), a 7, and an 8. that's it. He then went and won $250 (well, half of $250) in skins with Deb Renner with a sweet drive on a safari hole (the same basket I mentioned above where I was 8 feet from the pin but was ob).

So on Saturday I took an extra set of clothes and stuck 'em in a plastic bag and put 'em in Cam and them's van (I suppose it would be advertisingly-wise to say The Flying Eye Van or, if I were a serious goober (hey, now) the Flying Eye Pro Tour 2001 Team Van). So during lunch I came to get some socks to change into and I didn't see the bag, so I asked Worm where my socks were. Well, the music was playing pretty good then and I'm not sure what he heard, but he thought I'd asked where the music was coming from so he said Inside that box there, well, needless to say I couldn't see how to open the box to get my socks out so he said, there, inside that glass, and I still couldn't see jack shit. And then I saw my bag of clothes and it actually wasn't stored inside their stereo system. In case you were wondering.

I had the best gyro I've ever had right before we left (at the olympic restaurant on holcomb bridge road in Roswell, GA) and the worst (at the food court in the mall by our hotel) while we were there.

I had a drop in birdie on hole 17 at Kendall, which is cool for me because Climo was pretty happy when he said that he'd had a drop in birdie on that hole. Look, when you're always on the 16th card, it's the little things.

So what else about the tournament? Lots of complaints about the course at Amelia Earhart... people love to complain.