Day three of the Cap Cana Pro-Am
What a difference a day makes. The Muslim world has a praise of God: God is good, God is great…..And oh how true that is…
Little wind today, the more typical 18 per hour breeze that brought explorers and pirates to the Caribbean. Not those 50 (yes, 50 mph) gusts that blew people off their feet.
The PGA Champions Tour at Cap Cana, the $6,0 million promotion of golf, Cap Cana and the Dominican Republic, all rolled into one, got off to a wonderful start.
Of course, these professionals took as much advantage of the course as they could, and the course stood up to the tests. A total of 20 golfers played par or better. That means that 56 of the world’s best golfers, 50 and over, could not beat the course. And you’d be surprised at some of the names: Dave Stockton, Bernhard Langer, Mark McNulty, Craig Stadler and Nick Price were a tad over par. Tom Kite, Ed Doughtery, Graham Marsh, were “way” over par.
( While I am writing this I am in the Punta Cana Resort Hotel almost forced to watch a bunch of well lubricated Americans make fools of themselves with the flight crew of an Air France charter flight to Paris. Man, I have seen some cruel cuts and put downs but these French stewardesses (flight attendants in the PC world) lowered the temperature in this non-air conditioned venue by several dozen degrees….Seems a shame that these clowns have the money to make such a poor display of US manhood…)
Anyway, back to golf. The star of the day was Mark Wiebe at -5, followed by Fulton Allem and Vicente Fernandez at -3. then Tom Watson, Jay Haas, last year’s money leader, and James Mason at -2. Tom Purtzer, a man with one of the most picture perfect swings in professional golf, regular or Champions Tour (flat belly or round belly tours!!!) hit the longest drive, a 350+ yard drive into a crossing wind.
The organizers had recruited a bunch of Sto. Domingo school kids, of excellent parentage for sure, to carry the signs that tell the spectators how the group is doing. What a fiasco this turned out to be. The signs are HEAVY, and act as sails in this breeze. None of these kids was in sufficient physical condition to do this, especially since the PGA does not provide those leather pouches suspended from a belt to hold the standard. They were supposed to carry the sign like a striker walking a picket line. That idea was quickly abandoned and in the end there were no signs on the course.
Today, my job turned out to be herding cats! Yup, 26 scorers walking the course reporting scores to a central control—me! There was a fairly strict protocol for using the radios, very direct and to the point, with no musings. Not that it was observed all the time: at one point an excited scorer broadcast that Wiebe made a ‘sandy birdie!!”, a difficult sand shot that went into the hole. Not proper. Another time, there was a blast when one of the golfers scored an eagle. The all-time best and worst was when one of the scorers did not check to see if his transmit button was unstuck, and broadcast a lurid account of a beautiful young girl that was crossing nearby, in true Dominican lustiness. Fortunately the PGA officials in the truck with me did not understand even a little bit and we escaped a major rebuff.
One great moment was when these 26 guys came in to the after session. Some were mildly chastised forfailing to observe proper radio protocols, aome were praised for good, precise reports. The best was when the guys showed off autographed golfballs, presents from the pros, and we got to tell them that this is an “inside the ropes” way for the golfers to say “Job well done!” to these volunteers. Not all of them got golfballs, but one guy, a poster on DR1 got three! One each from Tom Watson, Bernhard Langer and Mark McNulty!!!!!!
After setting up for tomorrow’s pairings, which includes writing out by had the names of the players, their tee times, their first tee number (1 or 10), their standing to par (+ or – par) and making sure they were in proper order, I took off for the car, with a ride from my friend Henry B. As soon as I turned on my cellphone, I got flooded with messages from my daughter in law and the tailor. Where was I??? The Chacabana is ready!!! Where was I??? So, I checked in and cooled things down and told the tailor (Juan Rossó) that Iwould be in the Shell station in Verón in ˝ an hour. And I was. Eventually, he shows up with my shirt in a plastic dry cleaning bag. It was beautiful, so possibly tomorrow I will be a starter for an hour or so, hopefully on Hole 1 after 10:30 for some of the big names..hehehe.
It’s late and I’m off to bed, ‘cause tomorrow comes too fast.
HB
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