September 2015

Oh, the joy! Oh, the happiness. Oh, the thrill.
Oh my! Will I ever have A BIG BAR BILL!

What thoughts go through your mind when you finally make the ultimate golf shot, a hole-in-one?

Multiple Aces

Having a hole-in-one is pretty special. But having multiple holes-in-one? How special is that? Mega!

Brian Harman had a Hole-in-One two times in one day

Brian Harman had double aces at the 2015 Barclays. His golf ball and the shirt he was wearing ar now on display at the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, FL.

During the final day of the 2015 Barclays, on August 30th, 2015, PGA playing pro, Brian Harman did something amazing, twice. He made two holes-in-one, twelve holes apart from each other. Both were made on par 3’s at the Plainfield Country Club in Edison, New Jersey.

Harman’s first hole-in-one came on the 196-yard third hole. And his second hole-in-one was on the 228-yard 14th. By making those aces, he became the third PGA player to ever score double aces in the same round. Now, that’s pretty special.

The World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, FL has both Harman’s golf ball and the shirt he was wearing on display.

Deborah Rowbotham

Deborah Rowbotham showing off her medals from the Huntsman Games, which we both played in 2014.

My niece, Deborah Rowbotham, knows what having multiple aces is all about. She has had three – yes, count them, THREE holes-in-one! And to top it all off, she made all three of them the very same summer, and two of them were on consecutive Sundays.

Unreal. Shocking. Exhilarating

This is what Deborah said about her string of aces, which happened in 2001:

It was unreal, shocking, exhilarating and, thank goodness, I had hole-in-one insurance!

All of Deborah’s aces happened at the Dundas Valley Golf and Curling Club in Dundas, Ontario. It’s Deborah’s home course, and I have played it several times both with Deborah and with my sister (her mother) Georgie, who was a long time member there. Georgie was 96 when she passed away last fall, but she was an active golfer until her 86th year.

It wasn’t until Georgie was 75, in 1993, when “Gorgeous George” as we used to call her, had her only hole-in-one, again at the Dundas Valley course. And Deborah, who’s been golfing since she was 11, was there to see her mom’s ace!

Molson Award

Georgie Rowbotham’s Molson Award from the Dundas Golf & Curling Club

Another one of Georgie’s proudest golfing moments came in 1968 when she won the Molson Award for the Ladies Golf and was given a beautiful silver platter as a memento.

Since I’ve played the course, I even know the holes that Deborah’s amazing feats were accomplished.

Dundas Valley is another one of famed Canadian golf course architect Stanley Thompson’s designs. Look closely at the name and you’ll see the word “valley” in it those valleys really come into play with the course. You will have an abundance of sidehill, uphill and downhill lies on nearly every hole on the course, and it must have been quite a challenge for Thompson back in the 1920’s to come up with his design.

Even so, many of those holes are familiar to me as they are similar to another Thompson designed course – Tor Hill in Regina, Saskatchewan. Although I moved from Regina to Calgary, Alberta years ago, I’ll always consider Tor Hill my “home” course.

As for me, a hole-in-one has always been elusive. But each time I step on the tee-box of a par three and look towards the pin, I imagine in my mind’s eye the flight of the ball, landing lightly on the green, and skipping a few yards and then rolling into the hole. Alas! I have been close, SO CLOSE, more times than I would want to tell you about, inches to the left, inches to the right, but never close enough to fall in and find the bottom of the cup.

Hole-in-One

If you’ve made an ace, there are different places that you can register your accomplishment online, but many of them exclude international players. One that I found that includes acers from around the globe is the Golf Digest Hole-In-One Club where you can enter in all your details, including date, which course you were playing, which club you used and has a searchable database to find friends or folks you know who have registered their aces. If you’re worried about hole-in-one insurance, one international vendor is Hole In One International who, according to their Twitter page, has paid out over $45,000,000 in cash and prizes to contest and promotion winners worldwide since 1991!

No matter if you think a hole-in-one is a sign of golfing skill or just a lucky shot, they’re amazing to watch and they’ve got to be amazing to make. This year, on the 2014-15 PGA Tour, 41 holes-in-one were recorded, numbers 40 and 41 belonging to Brian Harman. Billy Hurley III was the first one to record a hole-in-one last season, and both he and Andres Romero joined Harman with two aces in the season, although Harman was the only player to record two holes-in-one either at the same tournament, or on the same day.

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My bucket list is more like “what would I do if I win the Lottery!”

I guess we all have some idea what we would like to do and/or see while we are still able, and I’ve been thinking about what I’d really like to do with whatever time I still have left. I bought tickets for tonight’s Lotto Max and, perhaps, I will win $50 million dollars. Now I know that’s in Canadian currency, and in 2015 prices, but that amount is just $10 million more than Tiger Wood’s Nike contract in 1996.

  1. I guess the first thing on my list would be to give money to my kids after I win. After all, who couldn’t use a few million dollars?
  2. I like living in an apartment condo, but I would really like to design a house because that’s something I’ve never done before. There are many things I would like to have in my kitchen and my bathroom that I am sure are available but I have not seen in any home.In my bathroom I want rear view mirrors so I can see the back of my head for curling and blow drying my hair. I want wall or counter receptacles for my curling irons that I can put a HOT iron into to cool and for storage. I have many ideas for storage behind small doors above the counter for tooth paste, tooth brushes and floss. Also the same type of storage for the make up I use on a daily basis. not on the counter and not in a drawer beneath the counter. I want specific mirrors above the counter not one big piece of glass.I have many ideas for a kitchen that has different work levels. I want to be able to use my Kitchen Aid Mixer without having to carry it to a counter space AND I want it to be hidden when not in use. All small appliances would be behind doors so all you have to do it raise the cupboard door and use the appliances. This means that you are actually going to have space behind the wall at counter height for these appliances.Space for spices. Now this is a challenge and I have seen many different ways to store your spices. There are drawers that are designed for spices but now I have 40 spices and about ten are not the regular size. There are boxes of soda, boxes of molasses, tins of corn starch and baking powder. All this needs to have a specific, size designed space in the cupboards. I want an efficient storage space specifically meant to hold freezer plastic bags and foil and I want a space specifically designed to hold all sizes of plastic and glass containers with lids used for food storage.I’d like a walk-in cold room for housing all my fresh vegetables and bags of flour.Under the sink I want a shelf for my sink stopper, scrubbers, dish washer detergent and dish detergent. I want a plastic bag container that automatically crushes the bags and makes it easy to pull one out at a time.I want a laundry facility that makes you want to do laundry. This includes a large counter for sorting clothes for wash and for folding clothes,when clean. I still use an ironing board and I want this to be a permanent fixture next to the counter so you can iron large items and they won’t touch the floor.

    And a walk-in linen closet. Right next to the laundry room.

  3. A Lady Datejust Pearlmaster Rolex
  4. A condo at my favourite US golfing destination, Sky Mountain, Utah
  5. And one in Hawaii. On Maui.
  6. A road trip to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans (in #9 below), and trips to London, Paris and a Ryder Cup in a business jet
  7. A golf trip to St. Andrews and one to Pebble beach
  8. L.A. Dodgers World Series Home Game
  9. A Lexus LX570. In black.
  10. To design an emerald and diamond ring.

What’s on your bucket list? What do you think of mine? I’d like to know.

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With the Canadian dollar so low, it’s becoming more and more restrictive for Canadians to travel to the US for their holidays. Our neighbors to the south know this all too well, and some vacation destinations rely heavily on revenue on patronage from their northern neighbours. So when vacationers from Canada get scarce, many devise financially attractive schemes, like offering US prices payable in Canadian dollars.

For our last road trip, it was a stay-and-play offer and we booked it nearly as soon as we saw it. Our first night would be pre-paid.

Many seniors do a very good job of knowing where they stand financially. Many of us even know on a daily basis exactly where we are. That’s not just handy, it alleviates any surprises and, believe me, the last thing that seniors want are nasty money surprises.

The thing is, the offer didn’t correspond to the amount that we were billed when we checked the credit card statement the next morning. We got on the phone to try and get it sorted out, but we weren’t able to make the reservations supervisor understand that the price they’d charged needed to be discounted.

That’s when my daughter, Colleen, got involved. After a series of back-and-forth emails, the revenue manager determined that we were right and adjustments would need to be made. For the two nights, we should be paying $700 Canadian. That day, our dollar took 1.31 to buy one USD.

Unfortunately, that information wasn’t relayed to the front desk and when a further inquiry was made via email following our check in, we were informed it was an employee not familiar with the special offer:

Upon check in, we had a front desk associate who usually works at a different property that doesn’t have the golf package so she was unfamiliar with our current special.

Of course, in the end, it was a mix-up and the offer of $175 Canadian per person per night was honoured. It looks like we were the first ones to take them up the offer, which hadn’t been properly communicated to their staff.

However, if you take an offer like this, my advice is be tenacious about it, check your bills, and know what to do if the offer isn’t being honoured. Here are my tips:

  • Once you make the booking, check your credit card balance online so you can take immediate action. I know many seniors are distrustful of having their banking and credit cards online, but imagine what might have happened if we hadn’t caught this error right from the start? Obviously, there was a miscommunication between the marketing department and reservations, but it took tenacity, and time, to find the right person and get the problem resolved.
  • Know what the exchange rate is. You’ll see what the credit card company charged you, but you can know what it is ahead of time by looking on http://xe.com
  • Take copies of the offer, and all correspondence, with you and have it with you when you check in. You’ll be able to prove your case to the front desk clerk and, if a resolution isn’t immediate, at least he or she will know who they need to talk to within the organization to get it resolved.
  • Don’t forget what’s in the package and what you’re entitled to. In our case, there was an additional $25 food voucher with our package, and, as it wasn’t given to us when we checked in, we nearly forgot about it. Know what’s in the offer, and don’t lose out.

Travel safely!

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