Suh-WING and a Miss!

My company is moving this summer, to a new city in a different county, so we've being doing as much PR as we can. Always good to get free press. One great decision was to sponsor the Albany-Colonie Chamber of Commerce's "Swing and a Miss" golf tournament.

What a fantastic idea. It's a scramble (of course) for brand new and non-golfers. Everyone has to start somewhere, and if you're not the confident athletic type, going out on a public course with absolutely zero game can be intimidating. (It's also not the best idea if your newbieness means you don't know golf etiquette. It's OK to suck - I do it quite often - just suck fast. That is all I and the other people behind you on the course ask.) Anyway, last year's inaugural event was so well-received that they expanded the field this year and still sold out very quickly.

Since sending 72 clueless people out there to fend for themselves would make for a long afternoon for everyone, the event places a "good" player at every tee box and every green, to help out as necessary. Swing tips, a little cheerleading, a little club advice, putt-reading, etc. Anything to make the event more fun than frustrating for the players. As the representative of the chief sponsor, I got the 9th tee.

I looked the course up online Sunday night, and the card said 146 yards; I threw an 8-iron in my car. I show up yesterday, do the meet-and-greet, and walk out to the tee box so I can get some practice shots in before I'm responsible for getting these hacks somewhere near the green. They point me to the ladies' tee box. Uh oh. I've got my 150-yard club for an 85-yard shot. Oh well. (I should have known better. Totally stupid assumption on my part.) Anyway, I choke down a bit, make a few half-swings, and pretty soon I've got the distance dialed in.

I was having a great time. All manner of people came by. Women who want to play so they can occasionally go out with their boyfriends/husbands, men and women who want to be able to go out for business purposes, and some people just giving the game a test-drive. My favorite group by far was a foursome of women from a locally-headquartered credit union. They were a riot. Filthy, filthy mouths, totally busting on each other. "You've got to choke down on the shaft!" "Go down more!" "Grip it gently." And that was just while the first of the four was on the tee. It got worse.

Then the lightning came...

The horn went off, and we all gathered in the clubhouse for drinks and to watch the US Open playoff. After the Chamber's keg got polished off, the clubhouse manager scored some major bonus point by declaring open bar for an hour while they finished getting dinner ready.

I'm not good in full-on schmoozing situations, so sitting at a table of all strangers would have really sucked. As such, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my company also sent a foursome. Three of my female co-workers and the owner's wife were there (turns out they were on the 8th fairway when the event got called), and we hooked up inside and had a grand old time, drinking beer and generally being obnoxious to each other.

The shortened round aside, a successful event. A nice balance of business and pleasure for all, and who wants to be in the office on a Monday afternoon?