Vancouver, WA

During college, my friend Jason and I, found a way to hang out despite our hectic schedules. Despite the conflicting work and class hours, we both had Wednesday midmornings free. I was out of class by 10 AM and Jason’s class did not begin until 2 in the afternoon. Maintaining this schedule, we golfed almost every Wednesday for an entire year.

We would meet at the Salmon Creek Fred Meyer to pick up a few things before heading off to the course. Independently we each picked out “Green Squall” PowerAde as the beverage of choice for a round golf. Since we chose the same beverage, we considered this to be the new sports drink of “True Golfers” and drank a few cases throughout the year. After the short stop we slowly headed past Skyview/Alki/Chinook schools. Cautiously we edged in to the driveway of the golf course; the first and second holes cross the driveway

If the weather turned sour, which was about every third Wednesday, we would stop short of the golf course and head to the Westside Golf Range. These days gave us a chance to work on the short game by practicing putting, pitching and chipping to the 50 and 75 flags. If the rain was light or cleared for a moment we would compete for bragging rights on the putting green. [All ties or disputes were settled with the time honored rock/paper/scissors match]. The monthly practice sessions at the driving range helped us shave a few strokes off the good old golf scores.

In the Pine Crest club house was a whiteboard to record your scores for the course. We found an empty space on the board and wrote in our first score, 42, and looked forward to the day when it dropped a few strokes. When we finished our final game and updated the score for the last time, we had reached 26; one stoke below par.