Team Juice

On Saturday down in Virginia and I was asked to play golf with Mindy's brother Ben and her uncle Austin. There was a tournament organized by some people Ben worked with and they wanted to round out their group. My golfing ability is fair at best but when I found out the format was a "Captain's Choice" format (all 4 golfers hit their shot, you pick the best one then all four hit from there) I was really looking forward to playing.

We got the the meet up point, a bar near the golf course. It was described by Ben as a "smokey, divey bar"...and this was quite accurate. The "Harbor Inn" was nothing more than a glass door shop front with a small (and very smokey) bar area inside. Most pubs have a decent selection of beers - the only two taps in this place were for Budweiser and Miller Lite. Kind of like a Blues Brothers moment - "What kind of beer do you have?". "We have BOTH kinds - Budweiser AND Miller". Anyway, we paid our money to the organizer - "Buzzy" - and were told that "Juice" would be our team captain and 4th member. We left for the course and began searching for Juice.

Juice turned out to be a nice guy in his late 50's, having quite a large belly and (from his own admission), of dubious golfing ability. However, winning was not the intention of the day but he was quite friendly so all should be fine. Our plan was simple - try not to get any bogeys, figuring that we will get the odd birdie along the way which might get us to a competitive total.

After a few pars we started to play a little better. I was mixing in some good shots with some amazingly bad ones but because of the format, this did not hurt the team. My main aim off the tee was to put a 3-wood on the fairway which would then allow the other guys to take a rip with the driver, knowing that we had a ball in good shape if they were not accurate. This was working well for much of the round, setting us up for the toughest hole on the course...quite a long par 5. With my drive in play, Ben took a rip and drilled it down the left side of the fairway. He then drilled his approach shot to about 10 feet from the hole. After Austin hit the putt for the eagle, we found ourselves at 5 under. We made the turn at 6 under and were thinking we were in good shape to maybe get a place.

We scrambled well for much of the back 9, making some tough pitches and putts to get pars and keeping us in the round. On the 17th green, we were sitting at 7 under and facing an 18 footer for birdie. We all took a shot at the putt and narrowly missed. However, we still had a few "mulligans" available to use and we figured that this was a good time to try to get back another shot. I had two to burn and so figured that putting was where I could use them best. I lined up the putt again and pushed it a few inches to the left. Grabbing the ball and lining up again (for my final mulligan), I made an adjustment and tried to push it more to the right...it worked, and the ball dropped in the hole to send us to 8 under with one hole to play.

The final hole was a 270 yard par 4. Again, I hit first and put the ball about 50 yards from the flag in the middle of the fairway. Ben then took a crack at the green and absolutely creamed his drive. We watched the ball bounce and roll right up on the green in the direction of the hole. The group in front of us was still putting at the time! So we knew we were looking good but not sure exactly how close we were. When we got up there, they were finishing their putts and told us that the had marked where the ball went, adding to the suspense for a few more seconds. Then they placed the ball 6 feet from the hole! Ben walked up and knocked in the putt for the eagle and a final score of 10 under. We felt this would be quite competitive so back to the bar to get the results.

After eating, they annouced the winners. In first place, with 10 under, "Team Juice"!! 2nd place was 9 under, so the eagle made the difference for us. It really was a lot of fun. Our prize was $50 a piece, which paid for the $40 entry fee and my lunch...so a good price for a day of golf. Ben was the star of the team but we all contributed throughout the day at different times. Whenever he would hit a poor shot, one of us would hit a nice one and keep us in the hole. Not sure if it can be arranged but it would be nice if the "Harbor Inn Golf Tournament" was a regular stop on my golfing calendar.