A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

This past Saturday was the company Golf Tournament and Family Fun Day. The event was out at the Rosthern, Saskatchewan Valley Regional Park. The format was a Texas Scramble (best ball) with around ten foursomes in the tournament. The weather was looking fairly questionable since Saskatoon and area was hit by a massive thunderstorm the night before. Even though Saturday looked quite gloomy as well, the rain did hold off allowing the day to be enjoyed by all.

My team ended up finishing at four over par which was good enough to claim second place. This got me a ten dollar gift certificate to SportChek. I could have used that in the morning since I had just bought some golf balls at that very store prior to the tournament. I was also about ten feet away from winning the “closest to the pin” contest on the ninth hole – I blame the wind for this.

Following the tournament was dinner and a Bocce tournamnet (which I didn’t participate in). Steak, chicken, hot dogs, corn, and veggies were grilled to perfection and everyone stuffed themselves silly. The steak was incredible. Following dinner, Jeffrey, Rachel, Ryan (Cey), and I went to the park where we were extremely excited to go down this big, fifty foot tube slide. There was a faint smell of urine in the slide, but that didn’t hold us back. When we got down and our backsides were slightly wet, our poor decision was fully realized.

I took some pictures with my little point-and-shoot, and you can see them here and here.

The 6th annual Team Dream Golf Getaway was held a couple weeks ago at the Elk Ridge Resort in northern Saskatchewan near Waskesiu. This was the second time that I have attended this weekend that is filled with golf and all types of shenanigans. Last year I took a quite a few pictures to document the trip, but this year I shot a lot of digital video in its place.

I was able to get quite a bit of footage and have cut together a short film that you can view below. I have also included links to download some higher quality versions of the video that you can find below as well. Enjoy, and I would appreciate any comments that you have.

Note : the film contains a small amount of explicit language.

• Small Download 87 MB (360×240 Windows Media)
• Large Download 284 MB (540×360 Windows Media)

Even though The Team Dream Golf Getaway 2006 wrapped up about six months ago, I have yet to make a post about it. For those of you not familiar with this event, it is a weekend golf getaway which a group of friends make each year in the Spring. The guys trek out to Elk Ridge, near Wascesiu National Park, Saskatchewan for a couple rounds of golf, some great food, and a lot of ‘spirits’. I guess it doesn’t take too much of an imagination to figure out that this weekend is filled with juvenile shenanigans that only a group of men can accomplish. I believe this was the fifth annual Team Dream, but it was the first I had the privilege of attending since I no longer live on the other side of the country.

Without getting into too the gory details, I’ll just say that the weekend was very eventful. The weather wasn’t terrible, but it definitely wasn’t the greatest. We got a little bit of rain and it was a little chilly at times, but nothing crazy like the previous years had to endure. The course also wasn’t in the greatest shape since a lot of rain had passed through, so that took away a little of the enjoyment, but really, we were there to hang out and just have a good time – which we did.

Even though we were there to chum around, there is always a competitive aspect to the weekend. The twelve of us were split into two team and took part in a match-play style of game, similar to the Ryder Cup. The teams were as follows:

Fringe Benefits

• Marshal Herzog
• Adam Revitt
• Ryan Shuya
• Jason Fenrich
• Drayton Goodall
• Hemant J. Naidu

The Cleveland Steamers

• Bob Johnston
• Mitch Herzog
• Todd Weber
• Clint Keller
• Kipp Lucas
• Travis Weber

Even though the teams were more-or-less evenly divided, The Cleveland Steamers managed to steam-roll Fringe Benefits by a score of 6 – 2 (I believe – someone correct me if I’m wrong), claiming the grand prize – The Garden Gnome. Perhaps I will be able to share in this glory next year.

I managed to take quite a few pictures during the festivities and I have posted the better ones here. I wish I was able to take more shots of everyone playing golf, but it was difficult to get any unless you were in my group or in the group ahead or behind. I was able to get a lot shots during the festivites off of the course, so sit back and enjoy.

It’s old news for those from the Wilkie area that the local golf course has finally taken the next step and replaced their wretched ‘oil sand’ greens (if you can honestly call them greens with a straight face) with actual real-life, grass greens. Even though the greens have been ‘live’ for the entire season, I was never able to get a round in at the Wilkie course when I was in town visiting my folks. Circumstances such as weather, mosquitoes, or being just plain busy kept me from experiencing Wilkie’s new found glory.

At the last minute this week, I decided I could use a good country getaway, so I headed back to visit my parent’s. I had three things on my agenda:

1) I had a few photographic ideas that I wanted to work through.

2) Get my fill of mother’s cooking.

3) Finally get a round of golf in.

I’m happy to say that I managed to get get through my entire checklist. When I woke up Sunday morning, the sun was shining and there was a slight wind. I decided to head out to the course and take advantage of the weather. I was on the course by 10:00, and it was already getting really hot.

I could see the first green off about 380 yards from the tee-box. There was a father and his young son not too far ahead of me, and they let me play through. I had a decent drive and then played a 6 iron to within a foot of the green. When I was up to the green, I could see how good of shape they were actually in. It seems that my friends were telling the truth. Like they said, the size was also decent. It was by no means, huge, but it was a good size. I could also see that there seemed to be a hefty amount of slope to it as well. After my chip on, I had a reasonable putt for par. I read the green and fired away. It seems I didn’t really it very well. I finished with a bogey.

The first hole pretty much sums up my entire round. I was playing extremely well – driving straight, and chipping well. I can honesly say that I didn’t ‘duff’ one shot. I was hitting the ball solidly. The planets must have been aligned, or something. Out of the nine holes, I was putting for par, or birdy on all but one – yet I still managed to only convert on one of them. Frankly, the greens ate me up. I guess my friends were telling the truth on this front as well. No word of a lie, these are the toughest greens I have every played. As soon as I finished my round, I wanted to get out there and play again – to see if I could redeem myself on the putting front – but there was some delicious lunch waiting for me at home.

Overall, I am really impressed with what Wilkie has done to their course. My golf buddies in Guelph always used me as a punch line of jokes in regards to my hometowns’ sand greens. But now I invite any of them to come out here and try their luck with them – they’re difficult, almost to the point of being ridiculous.

Note: I went out for my round with the intention of taking some quick snapshots, but when I went to take my first one, it seems I forgot to carry a memory card. Boo!