Dateline: 8:45 pm, Thursday, June 10 @ MGA Office Yes, I'm still at the office finishing up work for the Sectional Qualifying events for the 107th MGA Amateur Championship. I'm scheduled to play in the Tapemark Charity Pro-Am starting tomorrow and then it's on to our Senior & Mid-Players' Championships at Interlachen CC next week. If I didn't stay and do it now, it would never get done.
The past month has been extremely hectice. Since my last post (May 11), I have conducted: (1) qualifying for the US Open (unfortunately, none of our qualifiers made it to Pebble Beach), (2) the MGA/PGA Cup Matches (in which the professionals soundly defeated the amateurs), and (3) the MGA Women's Mid-Amateur Championship (with Amy Schintz of Duluth besting the field by a whopping 10 strokes, shooting a course-record 5-under par 69 in Round 1).
Today, I had to do the course set-up at Interlachen for days 1 & 2 of the Senior/Mid-Players' event. Actually, I didn't have to do much thinking about it. I am using the hole locations for days 2, 3 & 4 of the US Women's Open Championship (played there in '08) for my days 1-3, respectively. Interlachen is a real treat to be able to use and play. Unfortunately, "dotting" tee and hole locations takes time and today was really busy on the course, so we didn't play as much as we would have liked.
Tomorrow, I start the first of my two events of the year. The Tapemark Pro-Am gets started at Southview CC. It is a terrific tournament that has raised over $6.5 million dollars for charities that support families and individuals with developmental disabilities like mine. It's a highly competitive, yet feel-good, event that is in its 39th year. Congratulations and many thanks to the Klas and Cody families for their support over the years. The forecast doesn't look good for the weekend. Let's hope this is one of the (seemingly) many times the weather people are wrong! You can follow my progress on their web site.
As I said, I will be playing in (at least) one more tournament. I will be attempting to qualify for the US Senior Open through the Sectional Qualifying on June 30 at Mendakota CC. I am one of 26 players vying for the opportunity to tee it up with the best senior golfers in the world at Sahalee CC (WA) in late-July. I hope my schedule settles down before then!
Unfortunately, between now and then, I also have the MGA Players' Championship (@ Spring Hill GC, June 21-23) and the MGA Mixed Team Championship (@ Owatonna CC, June 28-29) to conduct. Hmm, and when will I be practicing??
You can check out all of the action from MGA events, and learn about other happenings in golf in Minnesota, at the MGA web site: http://www.mngolf.org/.
Okay, it's taken me 21 minutes to write this. Since my starting time tomorrow morning is (ugh) 6:40 AM, I guess I had better go home and take a nap! I'm afraid tomorrow's going to be a LONG DAY!
Oh, one last item. Golf Bound starts airing at 11:05 PM on KARE11 this Sunday night. Check it out - my rules segment might help you.
Until next time--
Doug
P.S. - Congratulations to my son Zach for graduating from Rosemount HS and earning an Evans Scholarship to the University of Minnesota!
