Two taste treats that taste great together …
Or, maybe not.
Saturday morning and afternoon was taken up with the parish golf tourney at Deer Creek, a very attractive but deucedly difficult course in the southwest metro area (right where C470 swings around at the foothills, between Bowles and Kipling). We had thirteen foursomes, which was pretty decent, plus an array of other competitions, sponsorships, etc., which netted $2500 or so for the outreach programs.
I would have netted about that many strokes around 18, were we not playing a best ball scramble, so that we used the best shot as the next place to hit from for each in the foursome. I was pleased that we used four or five of mine over the course of the day (always when the one powerhouse in our foursome had a problem). My driving was so-so, my chipping was good, my putting usually short. I actually didn’t play too badly, all told, and the foursome ended up at one under par.
From which I derive one of Hill’s Laws of Golf:
It’s easier to make a good shot when you start from a good position.
Which is an advantage of a best ball format, because you nearly always end up in a good lie, which means your next shot is more likely to be a good one. Seeing as how I’m someone who tends to tack his way across the fairway to the green, that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Our foursome also burned through twenty (purchased) mulligans to make that score, so take it for what it’s worth. I also lost at least a dozen balls, and wasn’t the only one. If the course ever sinks into the ground with nary a trace behind, it will be due to the weight of the golf balls left behind. A lot of ravines, grasses, and environmentally sensitive wetlands, making for narrow fairways and links-style holes. Eep.
Still, much fun.
That was followed by the parish chili competition and dinner. We probably had about 120 people all told, and 17 competitors. Somehow I got drafted as MC, initially just running and watching over the karaoke machine, but eventually as spokesvoice for the whole shindig.
The karaoke machine was a bust. We borrowed one from a parishioner, and I made sure it worked okay and understood the mechanism at home.
Heh.
I didn’t count on the AV equipment at church not having video-audio-audio jacks to use. Old TV, old VCR, and thus a trip to Radio Shack to get something that would convert the out signal from the karaoke machine to a coax to plug into the TV.
And even then, I discovered that the less-than-stellar array of disks that came with the machine (which included all of three songs I knew) all had different interfaces on their menus, different ways of shutting off the accompaniment singing, etc.
And even then, we discovered, the speaker on the TV was good for about two tables-lengths of ambient noise.
So after some faltering karaoke starts and lots of people looking at me making pointing motions to their ears, we abandoned that bit of entertainment (superfluous anyway) and just enjoyed chili, with occasional announcements bellowed out by me in my usual delicate fashion.
In addition to a competition chili, Margie made Mundane Chili for the Masses (so to speak), in Beef, Turkey, and Veggie configuration, so that folks would have something to eat, versus tasting the competition stuff.
Margie, I am tickled to note, won first prize with her competition chili from the “celebrity judges.” I confess I didn’t vote for her (which she needled me about to no end) because (a) I thought it was too spicy (a lot spicier than her usual fine fare), and (b) I’m a sucker for green chili, and she fixed a red one.
But I was happy my MCing duties included giving her a prize. She deserved it.
And we raised another $1000 or so for outreach programs, between entry fees and donations at the door and raffles. And people got to each a lot of chili (and joke about how we should probably break out the incense for services the next morning). Again, a good deal of fun all around.