Our Day Out to White Horse: The Trip Was Worth It, But Not the Destination

Today Norman Cheuk, Greg Cheever, Jeff Benezra and I took the Edmonds ferry out to Kingston to play White Horse, just outside of Kingston.

It did not go well.

The ferry ride, as always, was pleasurable. I think it was my fifth Kingston ferry rider of the summer (Port Gamble for reenacting, LaPush for surfing, White Horse for golf, Forks for the Twilight “tour”).

The golf, however, was a different story.

I shot a cool 93 to follow up the 92 I shot there a month ago. Benezra, Cheever and Norman shot 94, 91, and 96, respectively (off 7, 6 and 9 handicaps). The World Team beat us 3&2. I lost $15.

Suffice it to say, White Horse will not have to worry about seeing any of us again. Not a level lie on the property, greens like trampolines, some sort of gravel in the bunkers.

Fortunately, we caught some good grub on the way back at a cool little pub in downtown Kingston:

Next up — Port Ludlow. And a little payback time.

The ‘09 Greenspan Cup: This One Didn’t Go So Well

The ‘09 Greenspan Cup is in the books. The Paul Sharkey-captained World Team defeated my Seattle Team 21.5 – 14.5 to take their second straight Cup. It was the second most lopsided win in Cup history.

The red guys won.

The Cup was great fun as always, but basically a disaster on the course for the Emerald City boys. I won’t belabor the point, but we were down 9-3 after Friday and just couldn’t catch up. I played some of the best golf I’ve ever played at the twelve-year old tournament. I won three matches with my longtime bud Joel Aro and went 4-1 overall, including a year-best 74 on Sunday to beat Tim O’Brien 5&4 (thereby ending the latter’s nine-match winning streak). Unfortunately it was all for naught.

Beating the heat with Joel, Sharkey, Waldner and Adam.

What a guy looks like ten minutes after hitting a 380-yard drive on a 670-yard par 5 (downhill, admittedly).

By the end I could only laugh.

Like Cheever before him, World Captain Sharkey tasted champagne.

Next year we’re off to Bandon Dunes. New state — hopefully a new result.

Greenspan 2009 Details

Seems no one keeps their Greenspan e-mails printed out in a nice folder.

No one except Cheever, I’m sure.

The Greenspan boys are returning to Suncadia/Chelan after a two-year absence.

Details of the 2009 event are as follows:

Golf
Thursday July 30 — practice round at Suncadia starting at 11:30 am
Friday July 31 — Bear Mountain Ranch — 8 am and 2:10 pm
August 1 — Desert Canyon — 8 am and 2:20 pm
Sunday August 2 — 11 am singles at Suncadia

Accomodations
Park Pointe, 808 Manson Highway, Chelan, WA (emergency contact numbers 509 670 4698 and 509 670 4697)
B202 – 2 queens, 2 aero beds
B203- 2 queens, 1 queen sleeper couch
B204- 1 king, 1 queen, 1 queen sleeper couch
B301- 1 king, 1 queen, 1 queen sleeper couch.
Fifth unit — World Team only

The Eleventh Annual Greenspan is in the Books

The eleventh annual Greenspan is history. The World Team prevailed 19 1/2 — 16 1/2, their first win since before 9/11. That’s September 11, 2001 — seven years ago.

A few pics (the rest being here):

Sturtevant, me, Waldner, Deandre, and Benezra.

World Captain Greg Cheever in the World's victory celebration.

Me handing the cup over to the champagne-soaked Worlds.

Congrats due to the World Team. They outplayed us from start to finish. We did, however, outdress them. While the Seattle Team sported smart high-end shirts from Greg Norman and Tiger Woods . . .

the Worlds appeared to have picked their uni’s in the dark:

Their Saturday whites from Antigua featured scales on the back and had players dubbing themselves “Team Sockeye.”

Whose bright idea was it to put scales on the back of a shirt?

As bad as they were, they may have been eclipsed by Sunday’s disco brown bubble jobs:

Part Native American totem pole, part '70's wallpaper.

Not sure what the thinking was there, but either one has to go down among the ugliest uniforms in sports history.