No Miracles Today

Pumpkin Cup Fever

Barb @ Pumpkin Cup Planning Lunch

Some women just can't get enough golf!

Four years ago some women at Woodfin Ridge Golf Club decided they wanted one last golf tournament before everybody drifts away from the golf course and gets busy with Thanksgiving and Christmas.  They talked to some friends at Star Fort, who thought one final tournament was a fine idea.

The Battle of Star Fort

Larry Parnell, Waiting at the Bar,
Ready to Join Either
The Loyalists or the Patriots

Each year I join in the commemoration of The Battle of Star Fort, an event that is little known and of dubious military significance.  While not a re-enactment in the technical sense,  this commemoration offers a moment when everyone who participates pauses to reflect on how in the world a golf match can possibly take on the aura of a military battle.  But once you understand the military battle, then it all makes sense.

Interclub at Persimmon Hill

Lunch at Persimmon Hill

Once a month from March through October I play a delightful round of golf with a group of women from neighboring golf clubs.  We play the Stableford system, we play fast, and there are stakes.  As club teams we play for an annual trophy that's rotated among the participating clubs and won (or lost) based on each club's ladies association cumulative score.  And I have a standing side bet with Peggy Smith because I feel that it's not golf if I'm not gambling!

Celebrating Helen Alfredsson

The First Evian Champion, Helen Alfredsson, 1994

Helen Alfredsson is playing her final professional golf tournament this weekend, The Evian Championship.  The 48-year old Swede has played some glorious golf on both the LPGA and LET Tours.  Her choice of The Evian as her final professional appearance resonates with symbolism.  Alfredsson is the first winner of The Evian (1994) and she won it again in 1998 a then one more time, a decade later, in 2008.  With fairways rolling through the French Alps and greens tucked into mountainsides, The Evian is the perfect venue for concluding a long and distinguished career!

Evian Blues

I've been pumped up for weeks, waiting for, anticipating The Evian, longing to be at Evian-les-Bains, dragging one of those snazzy green lawn chairs with the Evian logo embossed on it that spectators can purchase for a paltry 20 Euros at The Evian Shop behind me as followed Suzann Pettersen -- my secret girl-jock crush -- watching her roll putts, out-play the entire field, turn loose in Norwegian with a string of exhilarating profanity when her ball misbehaves, all the while nibbling delectable morsels from an oh-so-French picnic basket I purchased on my way through the gate to the tournament.  

My Mental Game: Sometimes Life Just Gets In The Way

For the most part I enjoy being an adult.  Within broad limits I set my own daily schedule, order and rearrange my priorities, decide what to eat and when to eat it, go to bed when I'm tired and get out of bed wen I'm rested.  And, as I've slowly and systematically set aside the demands of a job and the domestic requirements of an earlier era, I've become pleasantly accustomed to arranging all other aspects of my life around my golf schedule.

Thursday is a regular golf day.  Today is Thursday.  I should be sipping my smoothie, making my sandwich, stuffing some little carrots in a baggie for my mid-round snack, and heading out the door to the golf course.  I should be, but I'm not.

(Almost) Lost Balls & Axiomatic Truths

Those of us who love the game of golf, and I mean really LOVE the game of golf, cherish memories of certain special moments when we have actually triumphed over the game -- the day we beat Old Man Par on a hole we'd been struggling to master for weeks, or months, or even years -- our first Ace -- the day we broke 80, or 90, or 100 (depending on where we are on the scorecard/index continuum).

I have two memories that I call us and revisit on days when I'm especially discouraged about the way I played a round, that help me remember the core axiomatic truth about the game of golf:  This is a game that involves progress, but at which I will never achieve perfection.

Birthday Golf

All of us have weird, idiosyncratic golf rituals.  I was once chatting with my spiritual daughter, Jane Lybecker, about our plans to reconnect with family and friends in the aftermath of a great disaster.  I confessed that I didn't have a plan.  (Jane, who's remarkably prepared for disasters, carries a 4-day water supply in her car at all times.  I would succumb to dehydration.)

Jane and her Sister Kim, Ready for a Family Golf Round 

That led us to consider the barriers to reconnecting when, in our cases, we are separated by great geographic distances.  (You can't get much further apart than South Carolina and California.)  We decided that the best we'd be able to do if faced with cataclysmic forces of destruction was drive to the nearest golf course and play a round, all the while sending out loving thoughts to everyone in our networks, who would also be playing a round of golf while waiting for the world as we know it to end.

Now I ask you, which role model would you prefer?  This one?

Lydia Ko, 16-year old New Zealand amateur golfer

Lydia Ko won the Canadian Women's Open back-to-back in 2012 and 2013.  She's a schoolgirl from New Zealand and an incredible golfer who somehow is able to maintain a steady, even-handed balance, play top-notch golf in high stress tournaments, and maintain this smile throughout.  She's modest, self-confident, and unassuming.  What's not to like?


I'd love to have her dating my grandson, being my granddaughter's best friend, and showing other teenagers what happens when you work hard, play hard, and be nice to others.  I'd frankly jump at the chance to add her to my list of granddaughters!

Miley Cyrus performing at the MTV Awards

Or this one?  Joining your family at Thanksgiving as your grandson's new girlfriend?  How about joining your granddaughter on the family trip to the beach?  No? Why ever not?

I thought about embedding the video for your viewing please but I decided it was just too vulgar for my blog.

Let's get serious here.  I'd rather be a member of a golfing family than an MTV family.  But that's just me.  Maybe my age is showing.