3:32 PM Thu, Oct 01, 2009 | Permalink |
"Well why not?" That was what I thought when my Aussie friend Chris Bailey told me that the World Masters Games were being held in Sydney and the golf tournament might be a lot of fun.
That was four years ago and Chris was visiting Seattle, just back from having a great time at the 2005 WMG golf event in Edmonton. It was also after a few glasses of fine red wine and the idea made perfect sense to me. Travel to Australia, compete with total strangers who are actual serious golfers who know what they're doing and do this kind of stuff all the time, play three rounds in three days on three different courses I have never laid eyes on before, expose my well-earned 18.1 handicap to public scrutiny and the pressure of competition, compete in a modified Stableford format with which I am completely unfamiliar and generally wave the KING-5 flag with pride and gusto. Sounded good to me then, and despite many opportunities to come to my senses and reverse course, it still sounds good to me now. Oh, I get to play a fourth round, (the Champions' round) of golf if I screw up and win something in the first 3 days. I don't plan to do that.
In fact I'm so sure of it we're flying out for Adelaide just about the time the real golfers will be teeing it up. But I do plan to march in Opening Ceremonies at the old Sydney Olympic park and pick up my commemorative WMG tote bag. Gotta be packed with goodies like coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets and other stuff that someday will be very old.
Golf is just one tiny part of this deal. The quadrennial World Masters Games are billed as the biggest multi-sport international event in the world, a sort of Olympics for the older set. More than 28,000 competitors in 28 sports will descend on Sydney in the middle of October. Most are extremely serious competitors. For golf, fortunately, you don't have to be good to get in; you just have to be old. And be willing to get there and pay the entry fee and put up with all the rules and regs. I qualify. I'm in.
By the way, my pal Chris Bailey who put this crazy idea in my head and who lives in Australia and is a very good golfer is not going to be there. Hand injury, tough luck, g'day mate, enjoy the humiliation on your own.
Golf is also just one tiny part of the entire vacation plan. Cyndy and I will visit relatives in Brisbane, stay for a week in Sydney, spend times with good friends and play a little Petanque in Penola, experience "Cabernet Days" in the Coonawarra Valley and bounce through the true outback on a four-day tent-camping tour around Uluru, what used to be called Ayers Rock. If it isn't the very middle of nowhere it is pretty damn close. I have had a fascination with Alice Springs and Uluru since I was a little boy and I can't wait to get there.
I'll be sending periodic updates, mostly blackberry post-cards, to KING5.COM. See you all then.
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