Friday, June 27, 2008

Women's U.S. Open in Edina, Minn.

Here it is, the second day of the Open at Interlachen Country Club, and I've succeeded in avoiding all of it. One of the fellows who plays in my golf league bought a weekly pass for himself and his wife, and took this week off from work to attend. He took 126 photos the first morning, and by now has probably passed the 1,000 mark.
Another man on my league foursome went over on Tuesday. His biggest conversation piece was riding the big orange school bus from a parking gathering at an Edina shopping center over to the course. "I don't know how I used to ride for two hours to get to school," he marveled. "I couldn't do it today."
And then another pal offered me a free ticket, and I turned him down. It would just aggravate me to watch these 105 pound gals rocket it out there 275 or 300 yards, when I'm lucky if I can get it 225. I'm better off spending the time working on my own game.
I don't understand the attraction of watching someone else play. But then I've only been to two or three pro baseball games and one pro football game in my life. Never ever to a basketball matchup. I did attend a Senior tour event near Sacramento in 1999, the Raley's Gold Rush Classic. That was at the Serrano Country Club in El Dorado Hills.
Interlachen is the course that Bobby Jones is reputed to have bounced a ball off a lilypad on his way to winning the 1930 U.S. Open on his way to winning the Grand Slam. He'd already won the British Open and British Amateur, picked up the Open here, then finished it off with the U.S. Amateur. On the 18th, just as he started to swing, two girls ran across the fairway. He saw them out of the corner of his eye, flinched, and topped the ball. It hit a lilypad (some say it didn't), and ran on up for him to make a birdie.
There's a plate in the fairway commemorating that--although there are no more lilypads. It's rumored that every year, on the date, members of the course try to replicate the feat.