RTJ November 2023

Here we go again, Birmingham, AL.

Ross Bridge got new greens and was ready for play. New greens = concrete and were running 12 on the Stimpmeter. After playing the recently aerated Ridge course, you can imagine us leaving a few putts long.

Big Loser: The Weatherman. Forecast up to four days of rain and we wound up with a light mist one day.

Biggest Challenge: Curtis. Working through arm pain with ice and heat, he followed a couple rough rounds with a 77 and 76.

Best Chef: Surprising close, but once again Curtis’ training, experience and grit put him on top. Pat’s coaching from a different room helped. There were only three choices on the ballot since Randy created nothing all week while the others slaved.

Largest Conundrum: How could the Alabama game be so equal while at the same time the Low/Total/Etc. game be so lopsided?

Birdies: Yes, everybody had at least one. Some got three in one round.

Biggest Surprise: Reflection in the window of the photo of Pat and Steve in the hot tub.

Loudest Whiner: Randy won this dubious award hands down, as he constantly brought up the subject of strokes given and how they fell on the scorecard for partners. Nobody listened, as normal. In fact, nobody listened to his babbling for the entire week despite him providing some really great material.

Biggest Improvement: Curt 2.2 strokes better than 2022. Stev 1.7 better. Pat 0.8 better, Randy 1.0 better.

Stabilizer Award: Pat road away with this one. He was like a warm blanket wrapped around disjointed parts and he kept everybody in control and pointed in the right direction at all times. He was the large rudder on our unsteady and floundering ship.

Best Navigator: Stev wielded his uncanny directional feel and innate navigational prowess with aplomb as he guided the Boize down, around, and from Birmingham from the back seat.

Thought Leader Prize: We all had amazing ideas, some put to use throughout the week. However, the crowning achievement was Curtis’ suggestion to move Ross from a good day on Wednesday to a great day on Thursday. Well played. Stev had thought this thought with his thinking long before but held his tongue to let the leader make the suggestion.