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I love dreamers. Which was why I loved following all the dreamers working their way to get to Q-school for a chance to be on the PGA Tour. The odds were not good…frankly, they were awful, but still, year after year over a thousand golfers started on the journey that would give only 25 players a PGA Tour card.
As was my tradition, I would scroll through the lists of players at each site, searching for players from my home state of Minnesota to learn about, follow, and cheer on. There were usually 4-6 players to learn about and on occasion, one might make it to the final stage. But there was joy in my journey, living vicariously through their dream, even if most times it had a sad ending.
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If you followed my golf blogs back in my Tees2Greens days until well, recently, you'd know that I never really quite hopped on the Tiger Woods fan bus. But here are my clarifications: I always thought he was amazingly talented, I think he did immeasurable things for the game of golf (and Nike), and I always felt he had enough fans so I would put my support behind other players.
Even though I may not have missed him personally over the past few years, I feel like I can say that golf missed Tiger. Well, at least the media has!! The stops and starts over the past 2 seasons has actually had me looking forward to seeing him compete again. I've been thinking about Sunday at the Ryder Cup all week...I wish I would have had time right after to get all of my blog posts done, but honestly, I was tired and had to get back to work and other projects waiting for me. I'm smiling right now at the opportunity to remember such a great day. I headed back to the Twin Cities (for the 3rd time in a week!) on Saturday afternoon to stay with my brother so we could go to the final Sunday Singles matches at the Ryder Cup being held at Hazeltine. I spent the evening before watching what happened during the Saturday matches on Golf Channel and spent some quality time with my nieces & nephew. Sunday morning came quickly! The matches were not starting until 11:10am, so we headed out to catch the bus around 9:30am. We decided to use the Southwest Metro shuttles this time because they were closer than going to Canterbury and we had a drop off and pick up crew (Thanks Kim!!). There were quite a few people there when we arrived, but the line moved fairly quickly - they were filling the buses and had stand up riders in the aisle. It was $5 per person, but it was worth it. I've been thinking about Sunday at the Ryder Cup all week...I wish I would have had time right after to get all of my blog posts done, but honestly, I was tired and had to get back to work and other projects waiting for me. I'm smiling right now at the opportunity to remember such a great day.
I headed back to the Twin Cities (for the 3rd time in a week!) on Saturday afternoon to stay with my brother so we could go to the final Sunday Singles matches at the Ryder Cup being held at Hazeltine. I spent the evening before watching what happened during the Saturday matches on Golf Channel and spent some quality time with my nieces & nephew. Sunday morning came quickly! The matches were not starting until 11:10am, so we headed out to catch the bus around 9:30am. We decided to use the Southwest Metro shuttles this time because they were closer than going to Canterbury and we had a drop off and pick up crew (Thanks Kim!!). There were quite a few people there when we arrived, but the line moved fairly quickly - they were filling the buses and had stand up riders in the aisle. It was $5 per person, but it was worth it. I'm sitting on the sofa where I was a week ago, up to watch the Saturday morning matches and to give my back and neck some TLC as I was going to be hitting the road again soon to head back down to the Sunday final round of the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine. I had thought about skipping right to Sunday, but Saturday was part of the journey!
So it's Saturday morning and I'm rotating between a heating pad and ice on my low back, in a blanket cocoon catching up on some work, and checking out what was being said on Twitter about the Ryder Cup while having NBC on my TV (I pride myself on multi-tasking!). So it's Thursday night, a week after the beginning of the Ryder Cup in Minnesota, and I'm still smiling! Life has gotten in the way of getting Part 3 out sooner, but here it is!
I left off at coming home Wednesday night from the practice round which was AWESOME! It was so fun to see the players, the course, the fans, AND the Merchandise Tent! The Friday adventure came about sort of last minute (similar to Sunday)...I knew my friend Deb wanted to go, but I wasn't sure if she would be able to go with family or not. When she asked if Friday could work for me, the answer was of course YES!! We had our ticket adventure, finding some in our price range, and now we would be picking them up on our way to the gate. While the practice round time was great, I have to admit being there for the actual competition was beyond my expectations...I wanted to experience the electricity, the passion, the people, and the sense of team. Ryder Cup Friday, here we come!! As I'm sitting at my desk getting ready to type this (for the 2nd time- UGH!), I can't believe it's been a week, A WEEK, since my first day Ryder Cup adventure to the Wednesday Practice Round at Hazeltine National in Chaska, Minnesota.
A few side bars...about a week and a half before I had tweaked my back. It was about 7 days of feeling awful, not being able to sleep, sit, or stand without pain. If you know me, you'd know that it takes a lot for me to consider going to the Dr. but after about 5 days of pain I made a desperate call to a great friend who is a nurse and she miraculously got me in that day so I could get some pain relief. There was no way I wasn't going to the Ryder Cup, but I'll be honest, I wasn't looking forward to the card rides, walking and standing that were in my near future. This is also a crazy busy time at work for me so I almost didn't have time to even get prepared or excited for what was to come. It's a Tuesday evening, and I'm decompressing after what can best be described as an AMAZING experience at the 2016 Ryder Cup held in my home state of Minnesota at Hazeltine National Golf Course.
My heart beats a little faster, even now, as I'm thinking back on my adventure. A smile is coming across my face as I type and the experiences on the tips of my fingers are trying to find their way in this story. It might be a jumbled mess, but one thing's for sure...this is coming from my heart. |
AuthorI love golf and I love to write, so I can't think of anything better than having a happy place like this to write about golf to my heart's content. Thanks for joining me! Archives
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