2006 USA WJGTC Team
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OUT OF BOUNDS - Part 1
with Cal Smith
DISCLAIMER: THE GCAA AND THE WJGTC ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS COLUMN. IT IS MERELY ONE PERSON'S ACCOUNT OF THE EVENT. CAL SMITH IS SOMEWHAT OF A LOOSE CANNON AND THEREFORE HIS THOUGHTS PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY....OR EVEN READ AT ALL.
Well here we are, through the first round and all the hoopla leading up to the event. It's been an up and down ride so far, as Team USA had all the confidence in the world leading up to the opening round, only to be disappointed with their play (Round 1 Results). The good thing is that the Americans probably can't play any worse than they did Tuesday and yet still find themselves facing a surmountable deficit, but let's discuss how we got to this point, shall we?
All the team members met in L.A. on Wednesday and everyone seemed to have a fine flight...except for Hudson. Hud got to hang out in the Atlanta airport for an extra four hours and took almost all day to get there. He also had the pleasure of being seated in front of Pele, Jr. who was obviously excited by the World Cup, and proceeded to bombard Hud's chair with 739 1/2 dropkicks over the next couple hours.
We left L.A. on Thursday afternoon and were upgraded to Executive Class on Japan Airlines for free. Am I a master negotiator or what? Actually, the man just kind of gave it to us, but that's not the point. Anyway, we all enjoyed the spacious surroundings on the way overseas. The food was...interesting, but it was still a much better flight than we had expected.
Once we finally touched down 12 hours after taking off, we had the honor of waiting three hours on other teams to arrive and then we got to ride a bus for another three hours, getting to our hotel over 24 hours after we had left our hotel in LA. It wasn't the most exciting day (or multiple days or whatever it was).
The next day, we all went to an amusement park and were having a great time until someone got the great idea to ride the Viking Ship ride. They really should take the "Viking Ship" title off the side of the ride and replace it with "The Bathroom is That Way --->" because I would have found that little nugget of info much more helpful after getting off that stupid thing. Half the team went from having a good time to full-on puke-mode. I, having the absolute worst case of motion sickness on the face of this planet, thought it would be a good idea to get on this devil-ship. I'm sure you can all figure out how that little ordeal played out. Then we left and got to ride a bus for another hour and half. That helped.
The next couple days were taken up with practice rounds, the Junior Am and the Long Drive competition. The LD was pretty cool as every team had one player hit two drives and the distance of their best drive (in the fairway) was recorded. Kyle was our representative and was up first...318 yards later, we were all feeling pretty confident. Player after player came up short until we got to the last competitor, who was from Japan. He also miraculously came up with 318 yards as well, leading to a playoff between the two leaders. Kyle was again up first, hit one drive and said he was done...320 yards. His counterpart's second ball hit a cart path, so he got a third shot and came up with 308 yards, making Kyle the winner.
After completing the first round at 1-under as a team on Tuesday, Kyle was informed that he was being docked two strokes for "undue delay." Very heated discussion took place following the decision due to the fact that Kyle was never warned that he was on the clock and the penalty was eventually reduced to one stroke before the team teed off on Wednesday for the tournament's second round. Now the guys are taking to the course with a little chip on their shoulder and are looking to go low in round two. Look for another riveting account of the happenings around here following Friday's final round. Adios.
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