I’ve been slowly over the past 12 months accumulating some new golf gear. The latest is a new driver that sounds like an Easton aluminum bat when hit. It’s a Cleveland HiBORE Monster XLS. They have a deal from now through the end of June where you buy a driver and you get a free 3 wood. From now on, when I go to the driving range I’ll just call it BP.
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Eagle! Par 5 fifth at boulder ridge.

My good buddy V asked us to blog about all of our golf accomplishments, rounds, times we thought about golf, etc. He’s been blogging and so far in 6 posts he’s tallied 183 exclamation points… and counting. (I did a find-all, so it’s no exaggeration.) His exuberance has convinced me to do the same.

And now, for my annual summary of my golfing accomplishments: I put my clubs in my truck — just in case. This concludes my summary.

This was my eagle attempt on the 544 yard par 5 hole 8 aka the hardest hole by handycap at Blackberry Ridge in Sartell. My chip lipped out… then i missed the dang 4 footer for bird. Man my putting sucked that day. Four 3 puts in 9 holes.

I warned Ash, “heads up,” as I was about to tee off – she was getting some practice swings in near the tee-box. Rather than stopping her practice swings and paying attention, she decided to continue her practice swings behind the golf cart. I was in the middle of my back-swing and I what sounded like an avalanche of golf clubs falling from the sky.

I look up and ask, “Did it break”? To which she quickly replied “What? Break? No, go just go ahead and hit…” with a look of guilt so obvious you’d think she never told a lie in her life. Her follow through colided with a the steal bar on the golf cart that holds the roof in place. The club didn’t have a chance.

I think it’s funny because I was thinking just one hole earlier how much power she was starting to get out of her swings. Apparently, power enough to snap a graphite shaft against a golf cart like a twig.

A group of coworkers and I hit the Territory golf course of St. Cloud, MN on Friday. Six I.T. guys couldn’t say no to the new GPS systems they just added to their golf carts.

The course played a bit longer after all the rain we received last week and they had just aerated the first cut of fringe on the greens but other than that the course was great considering. I literally stuck my approach shot from 118 yards on the second hole (pictured), no bounce, no back spin, no roll, just a big ole hole and the ball sitting in it.

Yes, I missed the 6 footer for bird.

[photographer credit: JH]

This year was the second annual Grand View Lodge trip, though it was the first year I attended so don’t go digging through the archives looking for last years story.

As you may or may not know, Minnesota has more golf courses per capita than any other state in the U.S.. Grand View, our destination, is a resort in the Brainerd Lakes area of central Minnesota. Six of us bought a stake in the Michael Jordan sweet of Grand View for three days and two nights of golf and well, you’ll see. It’s a pad worthy of a spot on MTV’s Cribs complete with Pool table, Foosball table, 60 inch TV, Fireplace, Granite counter tops, and one of those multi-headed showers – not to mention the big pimpin’ grill outside!

The lakes area is chock full of courses and we were lucky enough to get to play a couple of the best. The first day we hit up my favorite of the trip for me, The Preserve. The course was in amazing condition and set up for a tournament the upcoming weekend. That means long rough, wet fairways, and fast greens. We played the first round for points, 10 bucks a piece, winner take all.

Here’s the breakdown for scoring.

Mac won the dough in what was mostly a blowout. Damn scratch golfers.

That night we grilled some steaks and corn on the cob before a round of poker. Mac won the poker too in a sweep for the day’s festivities. The first day was a Monday so the nightlife was a bit dismal. We passed the time with an over-the-top arm wrestling challenge. The sober bar tender dominated this event, but only after everyone else was too tired to have any gunpowder left in the guns – and did I mention he was sober. Yeah, cheater.

Upon returning home there was a steak fight followed by a wrestling challenge. I’ll just let the video describe the rest of this evening.

The following day there were a few sore people, but I’ve no idea why. We played the Deacons that day. The game was a team best ball, and thankfully I was on Mac’s team cause he shot like 4 over himself. I was less impressed by this course and much preferred

I had my ten year high school reunion last weekend. Damn I’m old. Anyway, Cole was in Africa so he couldn’t make it so some people got a blow up doll and put his face on it. We all signed it and posed for pictures with him, and then we’re going to ship it all off to him. He got into a lot of precarious positions that night.

The day included a round of golf at Izaty’s, beach volley ball, a chill in the pool, fear factor, a dvd-slideshow viewing, dinner on the balcanoy, Sunshine Behavior playing for an hour, a visit to the Bay View street dance, and finally a keg party at a classmates

It was a really great time.

The new A9, Amazon Yellow Pages are pretty powerful. You can enter in a topic and a location and it will show you on a map where they all are, for example, golf courses in St. Cloud, MN and in come cases in larger cities they’ll show you photos.

I helped a bud sheet-rock his fourth level of his house this past weekend. It was the lowest level where the big-screen and bar are going, so the project was very important. The estimated labor time was three hours, followed by golfing. It ended up taking the entire day, and a bit of Sunday before the Viking’s game. We only placed 40 sheets, but it was an all rookie crew and a fair amount of messed up, angled cuts. I think we did pretty well — that is if you forget the fact that an entire sheet never fell on the homeowners head.

I woke up Sunday morning with what I thought was a really runny nose, that was until I opened my eyes an realized I was bleeding all over myself. The rock dust in the sinuses must have dried me all out. I can only remember getting two or three nose bleeds in my entire life, and this one was quite bad comparatively. Calm down everyone; you can relax because I didn’t even pass out from the blood (shock!). It soaked all through my comforter, sheets, pillow case, mattress pad and onto the mattress. It was a mess, but oxy-booster took care of it. I’m sure with all that blood loss I need to get some protein in me, so of course I grilled some steak.

I think next time I rock out, I’ll sleep with a humidifier on high.