Funny Who You Might Meet..

I played my standard back nine at Rio Hondo on Saturday morning with my co-worker bud. He's getting better but has a way to go on his quest to breaking 100 this year..he averages about 125 right now. I played really well on the back and finished five over. We were just a two-some on the back when another guy asked us if he could join us. Sure, no problem here. He was the spitting image of Sam Elliot..talked like him too with that drawl, real nice guy, with a touch of schizophrenia..no joke.

We were playing and I noticed he had a very old set of clubs with an old bag. No brand name here but he was a player. His driving was about as straight as you could point at..all the time. He had a wonderful short game too! He was always just two putts out for par. I don't think he even used a wedge..just putted everything off the fringe.

He tended to give us a "narration" of everyones shot, but very low keyed, and was telling someone..in his mind..what we did wrong or right. We were talking about golf balls and he was mentioning how everyone loves the PV1 and then he drove away still talking about it. He was actually having his own arguments most of the time. After the 9th hole we parted ways and we shook hands..great player.

We finished fairly early, 8:30 AM, so we were able to play the front..sssweeeett! We got paired up with these 2 high school students and it turned out that one of them plays for his high school and the other dropped out. Both of them looked like the cast from "That 70's Show". They were dressed in that skater/punk style. One of them, "Ben", was wearing his high school's golf shirt, tucked in, and sporting an "oversized" old school black "SOX" baseball hat, the brim was still flat as new, keeping in his enormous caucasion afro. "Chris", the "Ashton Kutcher look-alike" drop-out, was wearing jeans and an untucked polo with a ski hat paired with your classic "Jeff Spicoli" black and white checkered Vans slip-on's.

I could tell though they were players and had game for some reason when they got on the tee box though. They both had wonderful stances and swings..and they hit their driver a mile..geez. It was refreshing to see that unleashed, youthful, bravado in their swings. Here I'm trying to maintain my swing, short of chaos, and too see these two kids hitting the ball LONG and STRAIGHT was amazing.

They were at times way off the fairway from their brute force, but had the ability to put their approach back onto the green or an awesome layup..something you see the PGA guys do lately. They both had wonderful touch greenside and knew how to putt to match. It's was awesome to play with these guys..or at least play along side them.

I tripled bogeyed the last hole with a tee shot into the water followed by 2 miserable shots but managed to finish 9 over on the front for a combined 14 over for an 85 (par 71) and FINALLY breaking 90 at Rio Hondo. It's funny who you get to meet when you play golf.