Sometimes Small Getaways, Mean a Lot

The past year or so, I have had the blessing of reconnecting with my brother, in a way. Growing up, we were pretty close for being 5 years apart in age. Now living a little ways away from each other presents its challenges. But recently one thing that has helped bring us together is the game of golf. In high school and even into college, I played a lot of golf in the summer. It started at a young age, when I was fortunate enough to play in junior leagues at a course my friends and I could bike to. During high school, I worked at a golf course and was also able to take advantage of an inexpensive junior membership at a nice course that wasn’t too far of a drive. But as it comes with, and I am not complaining, starting a family, until last year I haven’t been able to play too much golf. Last year though, as my older kids have grown up and now begun to play golf themselves this is coming back around. Caleb has really taken to it and golf has quickly become his favorite sport as of now which has been fun. But I am also excited that Eli likes to join in on the golfing fun every once in a while and last year even Brooke wanted to go on a golfing date with me. I dream of the family golfing possibilities that are to come. This year, we got to see a small but wonderful glimpse into this. 

My brother in a similar position with his kids getting older, has also been getting into the game of golf more the past couple of years. Our wives have grown sick of hearing about replacing our worn out and outdated equipment this year, which we have both done quite a bit of. We had a blast discussing all the different possibilities with each other regularly. We also have both grown an appreciation for YouTube golf because of how relatable the games all the different personalities play on there. Well this all came to fruition just recently. Kind of last year, but I won’t give the details of the waxing Caleb and I did to my brother and dad at my brother's home course. My dad, brother, and I found a couple of golf courses in the middle of all of us that offer good deals for twilight rate and a really good Monday special. So we planned a trip where Caleb and I  would meet up with them on a Sunday afternoon for a twilight round, and then all the golf you can play on Monday. 

This trip turned into quite the adventure. The Sunday we picked turned out to be a chillier windy day. But we all made the drive and met up anyway. This turned out to be a great decision. Caleb and I overpacked with plenty of warm weather golfing apparel but really it wasn’t overly cold and turned out to be not all that bad. Because of this weather, the course was not really busy and we had it almost all to ourselves. This was my first time golfing in sweatpants and actually, I really enjoyed it. We decided to try and break 70 as a scramble all together from the front tees, getting the idea from the Bryson DeChambeau break 50 series. Doing this allowed us to be together more and worry less about how we played. We got it done too, shooting 69. 

After golf we went back to a hotel room for the night, where we ate dinner and then enjoyed a few games of cribbage before going to bed. The only concern of the trip was the forecasted potentially severe storms for the next day. We woke up to a windy day but the first round of these storms turned out to just be a little rain with the second round moved out to later in the afternoon. So we headed out for the golf course to try and get nine holes in. When we got there it was so windy that I guess even the course worker didn’t think anyone would want to play and there was no one there and the course was closed up. To our defense, there was another group there before us also hoping to get on as well. After a couple of phone calls, someone showed up and let us play. Unfortunately, as we started playing the wind picked up even more and you could begin to see the clouds starting to form and it felt a little eerie. We decided all the fun we had to this point was not worth ruining by putting any of us, who all had to travel home, in an unsafe spot. So we packed up a little before finishing the nine holes to all get home safe before the second round moved in. 

We did successfully manage to do this which while disappointing, turned out to be the right decision. There were a couple of things that really stuck out from this trip. The first, is that spending 18 holes with your brother or in Caleb’s case with your grandpa is really enjoyable. The many laughs that were shared during our Sunday round was rejuvenating from the hectic work schedule I have been blessed with lately. The next thing was the comment made to me by my father after this was all done. I guess when Caleb woke up, my dad was standing there, and he told me the smile he gave to him was quite large. The last thing was that while this trip was fairly simple, what I got out of it was immense. During a time that it seems the days are just flying by, spending an afternoon, night and morning with my son, brother, and dad was amazing and something I am very grateful for. If only for a little bit I didn’t think about anything else going on. If you can tell by the lack of posts, I have been busy. Again, not complaining as this business has come from my little company starting to grow which is exciting but has also chipped away at my free time a little bit. Part of it has taught me not to take things like this for granted and I look forward to more of these types of trips to come in the future. Leave a comment if you would like me to write a “what's in the bag” post. 😂