Back when I was young enough to have a Junior membership at Parry Sound Golf & Country Club I used to play golf about 5 times a week.  These days I’m lucky to get out 5 times in two years.  My high school friends and I play once a year in our annual Disgusta and then there’s usually at least one guy getting married every summer.  This year that one guy is Barry Baldwin.

So off we go to Briar Fox, in Marysville.  I was pretty surprised at the quality of the course.  It’s a budget course but all of the rain this summer has kept it in great shape.  It was very busy, being the Labour Day long weekend, but we weren’t in a hurry.  We played 2-man scramble, which most people call “best ball.”  This is where both partners hit and then you pick the best shot and both hit again from there.  (Best ball is when you take the best score for the hole, after hitting your own ball the entire hole.)

We were one guy short of a full 8 so our team had 3 players, and it’s a good thing.  While I can usually hold my own on the golf course, if you mix together that we had a designated driver, it was about 30 degrees out, and it took us nearly 7 hours to play 18 holes, suffice it to say I wasn’t exactly Tiger Woods on the back 9.  Many crushed cans and a good sunburn later we arrived back at the clubhouse to total up the damage.  If we didn’t win we were a respectable second.

One last game of golf for this season and then it’s time to dust off the skates.  (And congrats to Mike Weir for placing second this past weekend.  I love that his game has come back to him.  He’s a true ambassador for Canadian golfers, and lefties for that matter.)