Everyone loves a "road trip", or at least that is what I thought! 😊 Truthfully, sometimes it is easier than dealing with flight cancelations, rental vehicles, and running to catch our plane after getting off the golf course later than we planned.
All in all we decided to drive to Charleston, South Carolina because of COVID and felt we could stay safer in our own little van "bubble". It also allowed us to stop on the way down, since it was Saturday, and get some much-needed practice on an actual golf course.
Our winter snow was not quite melted last week prior to our trip. We did have a few practices on our course, after I went over the rule for dropping from a snow pile! 😊 For those of you curious golfers out there, it is treated just like the casual water rule.
We stopped on the way down at a course called, Mill Creek Golf Club in Mebane, North Carolina, our arrival could not have been more welcoming and our time on the course, actually putting and chipping our ball was most enjoyable.
After our brief stop, we headed down to Charleston to prepare for Briar's Creek. Our practice round was the best weather of the weekend, and we truly had a very productive time, charting the course, developing our play strategy, and getting comfortable with the greens that had just been rebuilt, and therefore presented some very firm conditions.
With the first day scheduled for 36 holes of competition, it did not help with the long day to have the winds moving at 20 mph and temperatures much cooler. However, as I mentioned to the team, we are an "outdoor sport" that is subject to many types of conditions, which contribute to the game and the challenges it presents. We must meet those challenges as opportunities. The first day was suspended after 32 holes of play, so our final day we had to plan for 23 holes.
We made a great turnaround from our opening round of 317 to our closing round of 287! It helps to have a 68 and 69 thrown in there, thanks to the play of Sarah Willis and Mathilde Delavallade, respectively. This tournament is noted for its buffets of fine dining over the years, however with the pandemic, they made food for each team "to go" and we carried it back to our rooms to eat. Suffice it to say the time frame of when it was made to when we finally sat down to eat did not do the food any favors. Hence just a small sacrifice of the times we are in, compared to being able to compete.
Our trip home was certainly different than if we flew, like we would never have been able to watch the movie "Mean Girls" together or read all the South of the Border signs along the way. Currently our favorite, "You never Sausage a place" with a giant 3-D sausage attached to a billboard. Like a bad "Dad joke" we laughed till we cried.
Traveling by van allows us to bring a cooler to fill with all our favorite foods, however, by the trip back it becomes a battle in who can survive the smell of opening the cooler to grab a drink? Yikes! There is sure to be a leftover sandwich or tray of sushi swimming at the bottom. Traveling by van has allowed the team to play the "gratitude game" where they each write down 2 or 3 things they are grateful for and someone reads them out loud, as they all guess who wrote what! 😊 Traveling by van becomes a game of where can we find the best restrooms or food that isn't fried or a gas station that does require masks!
It truly can be an adventure that binds us together in ways beyond just the sport we share. And as we pull into the Penn State Golf Course in the wee hours of the morning, literally on St. Patrick's Day, we are thankful to be home, thankful to Coach Andy for opening the gates, and thankful to finally empty our cooler for our next adventure!
