Ah, the Wine Country

Pam took a few days of personal leave and we used it to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in the Wine Country of northern California.  We were scooting down the freeway west of Sacramento by 10:30 in the morning.  Although we made sleeping arrangements, and had two other short tours set, our 4 days were mostly unscheduled.

In Davis, near campus, we found this nifty restaurant, Little Prague, which featured delicious Czech food

  Near the Mondavi Performing Arts Center, we noticed this recharging station and an electric car getting "fuel."

  We drove to Santa Rosa, checked into our hotel, then got in touch with Leon and Carol.  They suggested a restaurant about midway between their home and our hotel.  They have been busy unpacking but are enjoying the wonderfully warm fall.  We had good food and conversation.  It will come as no surprise to anyone that the two are planning to get hitched soon.

  Back at the hotel, I was reading the local newspaper and discovered, to my delight, the last of the Champion Tour events was taking place at the Sonoma Country Club, about an hour from our hotel.  I called and learned it would cost only $20 for a pass to watch the Seniors play.  On Thursday morning, I dropped Pam off in Napa and drove to the golf course.

I saw two official looking guards at the gate when I drove up.  One asked if I had a pass.  "No, but the lady on the phone said I could buy one at the course," I replied.  "That's true," he said, "but you'll have to drive to the public parking lot and take a shuttle to the golf course.  You're in the V.I.P. entrance now."  Oops.  As I turned around to leave, I noticed Bruce Edwards drive up.  He's Tom Watson's caddy about whom much has been written this summer; he has ALS, a fatal, and so far, incurable disease.

As I was leaving the entrance, I'll swear it was Jack Nicholson driving in behind the wheel of an old Mercedes.  He didn't wave.

  I followed Lee Trevino for several holes, then stationed myself between #4 green and #5 tee; the latter is a par three and I stood, maybe 15 feet behind the golfers as they teed off.  There weren't many spectators that day and most of them were senior citizens.  Because of the "no cameras allowed" policy, I was forced to hire one of the professional photographers to take a picture of me to prove that I was actually on the course.

On the photo above, if you look back from the green on the par-5 #8 hole, you will see a spot of yellow.  That is where I stood, bringing bad luck to my favorite golfer, Tom Watson.

  This is a close-up of that yellow spot where I'm seen watching Tom tee off.  His drive caught the right rough, leaving him 280 yards from the hole on a downhill lie from thick grass.  He chopped it out with a mid-iron but pulled it into the left rough.  From there, less than 150 yards out, he uncharacteristically pulled an iron shot into a bunker short and left of the pin.  He blasted out to about 25 feet, missed the putt and took a bogie.  He was one under par when I started following him and was one over par at the end of the front nine.

I decided to take the hex off Tom by discontinuing my observations.  It was mid-afternoon, in the high 80s, and I had to meet Pam.  I read later that Tom shot 4 under on the back nine; I'm expecting a letter of thanks any day now.

Tom played well on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, finishing second to Jim Thorpe.  Tom won $270,000 in the tournament, then donated $1,000,000 to ALS research.  Class act, that guy.

Other observations:  Trevino is a comedian and crowd pleaser, cracking Viagra jokes as he played.  Hale Irwin pouts too much.  Tom Kite was friendly.  Bruce Lietzke was laid back and uses a putter grip ["The Claw"] that I will have to try out next spring.  It was a good time.

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