Clubhouse, games under construction at Green Lakes and PGA

/ August 21, 2015

This hasn’t been the busiest golfing season for KP and I.

My great friend and I got off to a great start, with Tater and our discount coupons from the winter Syracuse Golf Show in hand to play three of the nicest courses in the area before mid-June. Since then, though, we’d squeezed in just one more round.

Four rounds by mid-August does not a 30-year friendship fuel.

I was quite pleased to receive the text over the weekend with the news that this was a KP vacation week and inquiring about my availability.

He set our tee time, just the two of us, at 2:40 p.m. Wednesday. Somehow my mind rounded that to the quarter-hour.

Building for the future.

Building for the future.

He pulled up to my car with the cart upon my arrival and said we had two minutes. I opened the trunk, threw my shoes on my feet and the clubs to the cart, and off we went to the pro shop so I could pay. I noticed construction to that building and the adjacent restaurant.

Blue skies, green course.

Blue skies, green course.

The course, however, was all-go. The starter told us there were two singles ahead of us, and then it was our turn at the first tee.

I was fashionably on time. I told KP about my clock miscalculation, and we had a chuckle about my harmless senior moment. Then I related how I’d run the twisty State Park road a tad too fast on my final approach, and one of those radar-based digital portable read-outs flashed my MPH as such, complete with whirling cherry-top police cruiser-worthy. I immediately slowed to the posted, proving the theory. More on that later.

Out of the cart, I stretched left and right and took a few swings as the second single advanced down the pretty first fairway.

KP and I talked about last weekend’s PGA Tournament, won in an impressive and exciting fashion by Australian Jason Day in a battle with American Jordan Spieth.

Jason Day with the Wanamaker Trophy after winning his first PGA golf major. (David Cannon/Getty Images)

Jason Day with the Wanamaker Trophy after winning his first PGA golf major. (David Cannon/Getty Images)

Texan Spieth is the 21-year-old who won the Masters and U.S. Open earlier this season and finished out of the playoff at the British Open by just one shot. His emergence as a star was undeniable before the fourth and final major tournament of this season. Finishing second Sunday merely cemented the fact that he’s turned in stroke-wise the best four-major record in history.

With Tiger Wood’s drought continuing — the former king of the golf world and all things athletic again failed to make the cut in all four majors in this last year before he turns 40 — Spieth’s burst onto the scene is good for golf. He’s humble and says the right things, proud of his younger sister with special needs and their loving relationship. And now the personable Day’s break-out win is great for the sport, too. He’s by all accounts a good family man, an aboriginal Australian in his late 20s with a beautiful wife and young daughter who travel the tour by RV. They appear ready to match up for many years with another twentysomething, more cocky Irishman Rory McIlroy, who already has four major trophies on his shelf.

The era of Tiger Woods, his last of 14 majors won in that chase of all-time leader Jack Nicklaus and his 18 coming way back in 2008, may be finally and officially finished. Can he rebound and sneak in a late major or two? Is it any fun at all hearing the announcers say Tiger must finance second this week in the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., just to climb from 180th to 125 on the money list and qualify for the season-ending FedEx Cup playoffs?

And the thrilling yo-yo ride of Phil Mickelson, with his five majors and many of implosions to finish second, may be done as well. His last major came in 2013. Phil is 45. Jack was 46 when he seemed to come back from nowhere to win that last Masters in 1986.

Time marches on.

Will Dustin Johnson be the next guy to break out of the dreaded category of Best Player to Never Have Won a Major when they reconvene at the Master’s? He’ll be 31 next April in Augusta …

Anyhow, KP and I like Day and Spieth. KP watched Sunday, he said, as did I. We were impressed with how they visualized each shot beforehand.

Could we translate this to better results on the course?

KP watches his shot.
KP’s form on a par-three.
KP approaches the green.

Click on any gallery photo for a description. Click on the bottom right photo in a gallery for an enlarged slide show.

Some shots yes, some shots no.

When we hit the ball well, we were very happy. When we hit it not-so-well, I don’t ever want to see them in my mind again.

But can we talk here? Four hours in a golf cart on a 90º F day when the projected thunderstorms a handful of miles east of Syracuse never materialize allow plenty of opportunity. The kids are all good, adult ones with significant others and the school-aged one. … He and Sue’s new house should be ready in a month, and the present one is now for sale which makes this anxious-time. I’m invited to an open house. Um … no thanks, not in the market. … Karen and I really did have a great time in Colorado. No, it did not end up on my relocation list. … They’re heading off this weekend to Rochester to check out Frankie’s new downtown apartment.

How’d all this stuff happen so fast? Oh, yeah, I moved from Maryland to Syracuse in mid-August 1983. It only feels like just last year that then-Drumlins’ pro Joe Tesori’s father, Charlie, took us into the storage room that time forgot to show KP a used set of “Johnny Bulla’s” that became his very first weapons of choice.

It wasn’t too many summers after that when we jumped into KP’s car one August day and drove to Saratoga Springs, where he hit the daily double at the famed horse track and then we decided on the fly to play a round at the State Park course nearby with a piece of his winnings.

We laughed Wednesday, recalling how our cart that similar late afternoon somehow got a flat tire.

I try to figure out the long putt’s break.
I chip up to the green on No. 11.
I visualize my chip on No. 1.

In our match this time, KP whupped me but good on the front side.

I came back and took the back nine, but he’d built up a big enough lead to win overall.

KP and I, within feet of each other after our drives.

KP and I, within feet of each other after our drives.

All in all, though, through 32 years of friendship and playing golf, our games ebb and flow but can by symbolized by the drives pictured in the fairway above. It’s a pretty shot not only for the late afternoon lighting, but for the positioning of where our tee shots sit, feet from each other. Even Steven. The buzz words prevail.

Here’s the link for the source for the photo of Jason Day.

What’s the last activity you participated in with your best friend? What’s your favorite topic of discussion with your friends? If you’re a golf follower, who’s your favorite pro, and why?

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42 thoughts on “Clubhouse, games under construction at Green Lakes and PGA”

  2. looks like you two got caught right up, in the space of a day. i’m into the new generation of golfers, i like their attitudes, their friendly manners, their connections to their loved ones and their sense of fair play and kindness to each other. what a great day you had. with my closest friends, like to sit around or walk around and chat, outside on a patio, in a park, on a slow pontoon, or in a pretty setting. or sometimes even in our local coney island )

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    • Thank you for this great comment, Beth. You’re right. KP and I can immediately catch up with quick statements, tone of voice and facial expressions and body movement, even.

      This new generation of golfers really does seem to have it going on in regards to solid family connections.

      And, finally, a slow pontoon! That’s a great image for friends catching up with conversation if I ever there was one. ❤

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  3. Ha- I had to chuckle my Father, his buddy, two of my brothers are golfing as I type to you! I take the gang miniature golfing that’s my contribution to the sport. Or else my hubs does or the Grandparents. My gig is water sports Terp! The Gatorette.

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  4. In my house, golf was on the screen all weekend. Dad usually fell asleep to it, but we dare not change the channel. I think Tiger Woods brought a whole new audience. I miss that…he was exciting.

    Great to have friends that go back decades, Mark, cherish that…with or without greens time. By the way…those greens in your pics surely live up to the name ! ☺

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    • I just saw on SportsCenter this Saturday morning that Tiger shares the lead, Van. Maybe he can win and make the FedEx Cup playoffs to extend the thrill for his fans a little longer this season and give his confidence a boost as well. We shall see.

      Yes, Green Lakes was in beautiful condition this week, considering the hot weather we’ve endured up here!

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  5. I get you. Last weekend myself and ‘yer man’ went off for a night to a mega posh hotel with a golfcourse which costs £25,000 just to join. We arrived in brilliant sunshine and were the only ones on the course.
    For four hours I chatted, laughed, relaxed, joked and also played golf with my best pal of more than half my lifetime. It was an evening and night I’ll never forget.
    Golf is so much more than golf. (enjoyed the photos too)

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    • Way to go, Tric! That sounds like a round to cherish at a course of a lifetime. Yes, the golf portion is only part of the pleasure. We call it communing with nature, and with best friends who get that, it’s the way to spend four hours, as you say. And thank you for your kind words on the photos.

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  7. I, amazingly know about all of these golfers of which you speak. Crazy – huh?! My husband is a huge golf fan so when I am puttering around the house I can hear the golf game going on the TV in the family room (at 20,000 gazillion decibels – why do we need to listen to a golf game so loud)and I get all the not-asked for run-downs on all the players.
    As far as Tiger goes it seems to me he should just gracefully retire and go do something else. Write a memoir or something (if he hasn’t already). There are too many young golfers out there that are amazing – and appear to be nice people (as well) out there. He just seems like the, I don’t know, Mel Gibson of the golfing world right now – from what little I know about it.

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    • My dear wife Karen does not want to play golf, though without asking I went out and purchased her clubs when we started dating a dozen years ago, SD. Dumb man move. Anyhow, from our weekend living room time, she now is a golf fan from my watching habits. Sounds like something similar is beginning to happen with you! As for the volume, that’s a man thing as well.

      Yes, Tiger did so many things wrong that were trotted out in front of the world thereafter that it’s hard to root for him now, isn’t it? And I’m a forgiving sort. I’d like to see him go graciously because his repeated major meltdowns are so hard to watch compared to his past brilliance.

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      • What little I know of all this, he has never really been a gracious player – even when he first came on to the scene. These guys coming up in the golfing world now, seem like really nice, down to earth people. Perhaps they have all learned from Tiger’s mistakes.
        My Mom is a huge golfer, and from what I understand really good at it. According to my Dad – she took lessons at St. Andrews back when she was kid – which is super cool, at least I think so.

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      • Here is another tidbit for you Mark – we have an uncle on my grandmothers side that won the British Open – I think his name is Trevor Homer – guess he won it way back in the 70s. Also think that is super cool. Makes me think I should take those really expensive set of clubs from my husband that me and the kids bought for him years ago – and give golf a whirl – who knows I might be good at it.

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  8. Last activity with best friends? REO Speedwagon concert Aug. 13 in Canandaigua. Five 50 year olds acting 15. Two friends rushed the stage — one got stopped by security. That’s our “Par for the course!” Get it? BTW… that last photo is awesome with the colors! And I noticed that SJ Thomas sign in the first pic… they sponsored a hole at our golf tournament on August 1st. 🙂

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