Annual Guilt Free Golf Trip to St. George
COVID did not get in the way of our annual golf trip this year. Doug and his family got the virus a few weeks before the trip and everybody else used this much anticipated vacation as a reason to be extra careful with our social distancing and luckily we all made it. Jared and I flew into SLC and Pete drove up from St. George and we played Talons Cove in Lehi on Friday, October 8th. Then we drove down to St. George Friday night. Saturday, we drove to Mesquite to play 2 rounds at Wolf Creek and some of us got destroyed by the course and the slow play and the resultant loss of light on the last few holes. We joined up with 2 other groups for a total of 11 players on the last 2 holes just trying to finish. We spent the rest of the week back in the friendly confines of our favorite courses in St. George. We played 2 rounds at Copper Rock, 2 rounds at The Ledges, and 2 rounds at Sand Hollow. The second to last day we played 18 at Sunbrook and 18 at Sky Mountain. Then we finished Thursday morning with another round at Copper Rock. The competition was intense, but Brian took the lead on the second day at Wolf Creek and never relinquished it. So Doug had to hand over his long held trophy to the new champion. Congratulations Brian!
2020 Standings - average score (total strokes)
Brian - 84.4 (1013)
Doug - 85.4 (1025)
Chris - 85.5 (1026)
Jared - 85.8 (1029)
Pete - 87.3 (1047)
We also instituted some match play this year with both individual and team play. The first 3 rounds were solo play. The next 5 rounds we had pre-established teams of 2 with 1 person playing solo (everybody had a chance to be the solo player). The next 3 rounds, the teams were based on the overall standings with the leader playing solo, the 2nd and 5th place players playing together, and the 3rd and 4th place players playing together. And the final match play was solo with no teams. We all pitched in some money before the trip and Brian purchased gift cards from Amazon and the Nike store and Little Caesars as well as some pre-paid debit cards that were given to the winners of each round. The amount of the gift cards/debit cards increased as the week went on, raising the stakes. This added a whole new dimension of fun and competition and will definitely be a new annual tradition.
We ate lunch at the golf course every day and hit our usual dinner establishments at night including Benja’s Thai Garden, Sakura Japanese Steakhouse, Texas Roadhouse, Firehouse Subs, and Viva Chicken. We also made a few trips to Iceberg for shakes. We drove back to Salt Lake City on Thursday afternoon following our final round of golf and had lunch at Lonny Boys in Hurricane. And even though we played 12 full rounds of golf, I don’t think any of us was ready for the trip to be over. Can’t wait for next year.
Talons Cove
Wolf Creek
Sand Hollow
Sky Mountain
Farewell lunch at Lonny Boys BBQ
