Champ: Nick
HSI IV
Fort Collins, CO
June 24-27, 2004
2nd: JJ
3rd: Dan Ferguson
4th: Sheebz
Stats
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 2004
Dan had driven to Colorado a few days early. Nick and Dan picked up JJ and Sheebz at Denver airport and the four made the drive to Winter Park. The drive didn't begin until around 8 p.m. and took about an hour and a half. The group discussed the rules for the upcoming event and decided that everything would remain the same as HSI III, as far as scorekeeping. It had been raining in Colorado for several days but the weather had cleared. The courses should be in terrific condition.
THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2004
JJ, in his infinite wisdom, decided that he would go for a jog at 5 a.m. before the first round of golf. At 6:30 the alarm was still beeping and had been for 90 minutes - ABOUT 2 FEET FROM HIS HEAD! It had been going of for 90 minutes and he never heard a thing. Maybe he'll go for a run tomorrow.
The
first tee time on Thursday was at 8 a.m. at
Grand Elk Golf Club. This
course was about a 30 minute drive from Winter Park. We were the
first people at the course, including the idiot that was working there.
We ended up being delayed a bit because of a frost delay. The
course was a semi-target course, but you couldn't get in a whole lot of
trouble. There weren't any trees on the course. The hardest
thing to get used to was the distance on clubs in the thin air,
especially for JJ. JJ found that he could hit clubs 15-30 yards
further than usual. This is something that he battled the entire
trip. Sheebz came out with the shanks bigger than life. It was bad to
the point of pitiful. Nick and Dan were pretty consistent.
We
just had a few minutes to drive through and get some fast food before
making the hour drive to Golden, CO, to play at
Fossil Trace Golf Club
at 3:40 p.m. This course had been ranked as best course in
Colorado by various golf publications. It was designed a few years ago
by Craig Stadler. It was a course with very undulating greens and
rolling fairways. There were some very large, odd shaped bunkers
and many of the greens were like bowls with downhill slopes on three
sides. Sprinkles came at about the 8th hole, but the skies never
did totally open up. This is probably the most memorable course
because of how hard the greens were, both in that the ground was hard
and they were hard to putt on. One hole was very memorable because
you could see the Coors Brewery. Another was cool because there
were big stone pillars in the middle of the fairway that containd
fossils.
That evening we went and had some pizza and brew at "The Pub". After dinner we went back to the condo and Sheebz began giving JJ a lesson on the X-Box racing game. We must have played 100 games on that darn box.
FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 2004
Only one tee time today, 10:40 a.m. at SolVista Golf Course. This course was a links style course in a very similar layout to Grand Elk, except for it had more hills. We heard loud claps of thunder and saw lightning in the distance for most of the round, and the clouds finally opened up as we were playing the 15th hole. We retired to the clubhouse for a drink and let the rains pass before heading back out for the final three holes.
On the way back to the condo we made three stops: 1. We needed to get some dinner supplies, 2. We all needed more beer, and 3. Sheebz needed to get more golf balls. That night Dan made a killer meal of tacos / burritos, while JJ and Sheebz raced some more on X-Box (are you seeing a pattern here?).
SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 2004
Two
rounds were planned for today at
Pole Creek Golf Club. This course was real close to Winter
Park. It looked like a course that had just enough trees cleared for the
fairways. The first tee time was at 7:50 a.m. However, we
were a bit delayed because of the dense fog on the course. We
played the first four holes on the Ranch course without really seeing
the holes due to the fog. The back nine was on the Ridge. This
course had lots of trouble if you couldn't hit the ball straight.
Dense trees lined almost every hole. The first round concluded at
around noon, and we went and had some lunch at the clubhouse.
There was a little concern about our ability to complete the second round because of the dense clouds that were appearing in the sky. We teed off at around 1:30 p.m. on the Meadow course. We replayed the Ranch for the back nine, which was nice because the first few holes were foggy in the morning. We made it all the way to #17 before the hard rains came. It rained for about 15 minutes and then we were able to finish the last two holes. We were all real tired at the end of the day.
That evening we went to a restaurant that I can't remember the name of and had pasta, pizza, and beer. We were all real beat after 36 holes today and 5 rounds in the last 3 days.
SUNDAY, JUNE 27, 2004
The fun was over and it was time for everybody to head home. The trophy presentation was held at the condo, and Nick taunted everybody for a little bit. We said our goodbyes, and Dan drove JJ and Sheebz to the airport and then drove back to Missouri. HSI IV was over.
We did hold some very preliminary discussion about HSI V during this event. We have mentioned doing something in Spring 2005 in Texas, but nothing is firm yet.