The day began with two pleasant experiences: more complaining about Ada, and a leisurely breakfast with the Truffins before departing Tiffin.
On the former...I took seven to eight penalty strokes at the tournament, only one of which was caused by gong out of bounds in a meaningful sense. Yes, the two meter rule was in effect (first tournament I've played that chose to have it), and yes, I lost a stroke to it. The annoying thing was the sidewalks. Picture this computer screen as the playing field on which a hole is set up. Now blindfold a four year old and give her four to seven seconds to randomly scribble on the screen. These are your Ada sidewalks, and they are all OB. I'm all for giving right of way to pedestrians, but when it's a spaghetti latticework of four foot strips of concrete running through the course that has nothing, really to do with whether or not you threw a good shot or a bad one, I figured you could just as well have each group throw their respective minis in a plastic bag before each hole, draw one at random, and assess its owner a penalty stroke.
I did, however, check the PDGA results and see that despite throwing rollers and thumbers and being dreadfully bored hobbling around on blistered feet, I threw within a stroke of my PDGA rating, so at least the experience won't kill my rating.
The drive to DeKalb wasn't too long, so we decided to stop at Rum Village Park in South Bend, Indiana. I had one bad approach shot that cost me a four on a 260 foot (or so) elevation to elevation shot, but I got a three on the looooooong ninth hole (no yardage marked, but it felt like 550 or so downill). All the pins were in the long position, making it a bit more challenging, and I just missed on some long putts. Still, Cindy and I managed to throw a fifty-five. Normally the double nickel is my least favorite score, especially on a new course, but there were enough long holes here that I had to concede that this was a pretty good round. (Cindy nearly holed a three on her own for a 365 foot downhill hole and is throwing the Skeeter very nicely.) I suppose on some level, I needed to throw a challenging courses a well more than I needed a pitch and putt. I mean, after you throw a 91 in a tournament round, I think you need some evidence you are not a total loser, even if that 91 was on 21 holes from ridiculous long tees in 25 mph winds.
The worst part of the day is it took us about an hour to drive the eight miles or so between Gary, Indiana and the Illinois border. As near as I can tell, it was all just a bottleneck from losing one lane to road work. Grrrr.
That means we arrived in DeKalb later than anticipated, but fortunately we gained an hour from going to Central time. Entering DeKalb isn't much at all like revisiting Toccoa. My memories of Illinois are pleasant, if not overly rose-colored, but I still get that same disconnect of trying to fathom, you know, actually living in a place in which I'm now an outsider. I told Cindy that sometimes it doesn't feel like a lifetime ago so much as it feels like we've led several different lives, and I'm trying to remember that one.
Rum Village Park; South Bend, Indiana
2-3-3 3-3-3 4-3-3 (27) OUT
3-2-4 4-3-3 3-3-3 (28) IN 55
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