My daily old age rant.

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

For those that do not know, my competitive sports in high school were basketball and golf, and a chronic back injury kept me from playing golf in college but I managed to play competitively with a handicap below 5 until Mark, Jr., and Andy came along.

Next week Mark, Jr., has a college softball DH at a college which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. Since he had never umpired there he went to Google Maps to look at a satellite view of the game site. After comparing Google Maps with pictures on the college's athletic website and reading the college's athletic website, that the college had bought an existing 18 hole golf course and ripped up the back 9 to build an athletic complex where the college's softball diamond was constructed.

It was bad enough that the back 9 was destroyed for a softball diamond but the course was a Donald Ross course. Donald Ross is one of the gods of golf course design architects. He designed Pinehurst #2 and the Inverness Club in Toledo, two of the most famous golf coursed in the world; he also designed two courses in my home town of Youngstown, Ohio: Mill Creek Park Golf Course and Youngstown Country Club (where I caddied).

Oh the humanity of destroying a Donald Ross golf course for a softball field, !

MTD, Sr

[Insane Blue]

And 20 years from now someone will be complaining that a softball field was destroyed to put in some Pickleball courts.

[Tru_in_Blu]

"Oh the in-humanity of destroying a Donald Ross golf course for a softball field"

Slight correction above?

I'm not a golf fan, so this may be lost on me. Only played 1 time in my life on a 9 hole course with rented clubs when I was 16. I think I tallied a 74, but it was probably much worse than that because we didn't know golf rules.

Also, I was never affluent enough to afford the game.

First hole there was a water hazard - basically an oversized puddle. Using a driver, I hit a ground ball into the puddle. Thought I must have used the wrong type of club. So I tried one of the irons next. Hit a popup into the puddle.

Given that I had a better arm than a golf swing, my next "shot" was to throw a ball over the puddle and proceeded from there. With rented clubs and a limited supply of balls, I figured I'd run out of balls by the third hole.

My best shot of the day was right down the middle of the fairway - and then nobody in my party could find the ball. I don't know how many balls they gave us to start, but I didn't have many left at the end.

All golf jokes apply:
Golf, a nice walk spoiled.
Golf was invented by the same people that think music comes out of bagpipes.

[shipwreck]

Takes a lot of BALLS to play this game. LOL

Dave