St. Jude Classic

Eric's boss gave us two free passes to the St. Jude Classic. The St. Jude Classic is one of the longest running events on the PGA Tour and it benefits the St. Jude Children's Research. This year the purse was $5,600,000 with $1,008,000 going to the winner. I can't even imagine that amount of money!My golf background is zilch. I believe the first time I tried golfing was in my Uncle Craig's and Aunt Ida's backyard. They had built a miniature golf course for the youth in their ward and my family went over one night for FHE. My Uncle Cree was trying to teach me how to play and I decided to hit the ball as hard as I could to get it around the obstacle. It seemed like a really good idea at the time. I didn't tell Cree my plan and I ended up swinging my club as hard as I could (almost like a bat). My aim must have been off because I didn't connect with the ball... instead I connected with Cree's face. No worries, I didn't break anything, just drew some blood. But I gave up golf right then and there.

When Eric called and told me about the tickets, I was hesitant to go. Then he mentioned that it would make an interesting post on the blog. That's all I needed to hear so I packed the diaper bag and was ready to step foot on my first real golf course! When we arrived they wouldn't let me bring my diaper bag, camera, or cell phone--which annoyed me because the only reason I wanted to go was so I could take pictures and blog about it. I tried to talk Eric out of going to the tournament and taking me to Hobby Lobby instead. But Eric appeased me and told me we could download pictures from the internet.

Like I said, I know next to nothing about golf but I've been told there were some pretty good players there such as: Phil Mickelson (World's number 2 player), Sergio Garcia, Camilo Villegas, Justin Leonard, David Toms, Shaun Michael, John Daly, Brian Gay, David Ducal, Mark Brooks, and Rich Beem. We watched a lot of different players and followed Mickelson, Todd, and Day around for a few holes. Eric thought it was pretty neat watching Mickelson birdie the 8th hole (whatever that means). I was amazed how close to the hole many of the players got the ball. I am sure it would take me 15 strokes to their 3, hence the reason I don't golf.

Brian Gay ended up winning the tournamnet. All in all, it was pretty interesting. I almost died of heatstroke but I got an interesting post out of the experience and Eric did take me to Hobby Lobby. I would like to think that we both walked away winners!