Golf aces and Ute birdies

SPORTS SHORTS

by Scott Boyle

Golf

Even as the much anticipated Utah-BYU game looms, so does the end of a glorious 2007 golf season at the Hideout. Mild November weather has extended the season longer than most years.

Director of Golf Jim Robison reports that play is still available for walkers, but the carts have been put away for the year.

Even if you don’t play golf (and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t), a walk around the course will bring immense delight – if you don’t get run over by deer or turkeys.

Robison reports that 16,137 nine-hole rounds were played this year through October. That is up from 2006 when 14,558 rounds were played, but down a little from 2005 when 16,413 were played.

The extended November play will likely make this the best year ever for the Hideout. Robison reports that the increase comes mostly from increased out of town golfers. We like that, bringing in that outside revenue, don’t we?

“We had a great year,” says Robison, “with a great staff and a great golf course.”

The new regime of specialized sand from Grand Junction, rather than Bluff sand, and airifying has seemed to turn the tide on the green problems.

The greens were superb this fall with the ball rolling smooth, true, and firm. Persisting problems on holes 15, 16, and 17 however will require some re-sodding in the early spring.

Staff story

And can someone find staff member Dave Ketron a camera? It seems Dave was idling his mower this fall alongside the fairway waiting while a foursome from out of town played through. They were commenting on the gorgeousness of the course and asked Dave if he would take a picture. “Don’t got a camera,” he replied, tongue in cheek.

Indeed, the course is unquestionably camera worthy as evidenced by the Hideout being on the cover and in the August spot of the 2008 Utah Golf Association Calendar (the same two positions as in 2007 and the only course photographed twice).

Holes-in-one

Five lucky golfers hit holes-in-one at the Hideout this season. In addition to Cory Eardley and Desiree Wright, whom we mentioned before, early teenager CJ Cordasco and later teenagers Mel Walker and Dennis Mustard all scored aces.

Walker knocked the golf ball in one shot on #3, as did Mustard, who hit an ace on #3 on October 27. He hit a nine iron from the blue tees. Local knowledge came into play as he hit it to the right and it bounced off the hill into the cup.

Local knowledge didn’t help later in the round though, when Mustard, a long time driver for Alan Ritchey Trucking, drove his four wheel golf cart into the ditch on #8. Need 14 more wheels on them carts, I guess.

Oh, one more holes-in-one

Mustard was witness to another sort of hole in one this summer involving some of the local deer populace located on the golf course. It seems one Nick Patel, local business owner and avid golfer, was teeing it up on that same #3, with several deer standing on the ladies tee box.

Patel’s tee shot, a low driving shot, scored a hole in one in the back end of one of the deer. “Right in there,” marvels Patel.

Patel and his playing partners say the ball stuck for several seconds before the deer ran off and the golf ball popped out. “Go pick it up,” suggested Mustard, but Patel refused to touch the ball, even though the rules clearly allowed him to “pick up, clean and replace.”

Just a warning to anyone who found a ball on the woman’s tee at hole #3 this summer; uh... I’d get rid of it fast along with the surgical gloves used to get it out of your bag. Maybe all the other golf balls... and the bag, too.

Patel reports that the other unaffected deer remained on the women’s tee after the incident as he teed up another golf ball. He swears that as soon as they glanced up and saw him, they scattered. Ahh, golf. All the world looks better from a golf course.

Cougars

I am fully in-best-ed. My goal for the week is two fold;

First, I hope to inscribe something so incredibly emotion-evoking for the Ute football that it will end up on the bulletin board in their locker room. I’m not troubled that such sentiment-inducing speechifying will lead to a 50-0 finger-pointing Ute victory. No, a BYU victory is assured (some would say guaranteed), in my opinion. Rather, I simply hope to tweak a few Ute fan noses.

Second, I’m eager to ignite a repainting of the U in my driveway, despite the Utes’ unavoidable defeat. Now that would be a nirvana of sorts for any sports writer, winding up on a rival bulletin board and sparking an obviously meaningless repainting?

No one has ever repainted after a loss. I’ve checked the history of all repainting episodes, including the celebrated Devils Canyon car. Nothing has ever been decorated by a losing team. So, read ‘em, weep and paint away, Ute faithful, while the inevitably victorious Y guys and gals can check ‘em and chortle.

Q: Why do graduates from the U hang their diplomas in their windshields?

A: Because then they can park in handicapped spaces.

Did you know that they don’t have any ice in the U’s cafeteria? Apparently, the only kid who knew the recipe graduated.

Q: What’s the college tree of the U?

A: The telephone pole.

Beating the U isn’t a request, it’s a tradition.

Q: What is the best thing in Salt Lake City?

A: The sign that says “BYU: 40 miles.”

I heard the U’s team is always late arriving to the game in Provo. They keep passing all these signs on the highway that say: ‘Clean Restrooms’.

A group of backpackers were sitting around a campfire one dark evening when a stranger asked to join them. Glad to have the company, they agreed.

Soon the conversation turned to jokes, and one of the camping group started to tell jokes with the U being the butt of many of them. The stranger who apparently graduated from the U got angrier and angrier at each joke.

So he finally had enough and pulled out his razor and began to threaten the group with it. Fortunately for the jokesters, the stranger couldn’t find an outlet to plug it into.

Q: How do you keep the Ute football team away from your house?

A: Paint an end zone on the driveway.

Apparently the FBI was called to the Utes football practice the other day when they discovered a mysterious powder on the field that none of them had seen before. The FBI ran some tests before concluding that it was the goal line.

The Utes have a fine ski team. In fact, one of their top cross country skiers won a gold medal in the last Olympics. His parents were so proud, they had it bronzed and put on top of the TV.

Can’t get into college? Why not try the University of Utah?

“I have never in my life been more disappointed by a politician I voted for than I have been with George Bush. He is a total liberal.”- overheard on Trax on the way to a U of U football game. It’s 06:05 and Utah STILL stinks!

Q: What do you get when you cross a groundhog and the Utes football team?

A: Six more weeks of bad football.

Q: Did you hear about the fire in University of Utah’s football dorm that destroyed 20 books?

A: The real tragedy was that 15 hadn’t been colored yet.

Q: Did you hear about the power outage at the University of Utah library?

A: Forty students were stuck on the escalator for three hours.

It was reported that Utah head football coach Kyle Whittingham will only be dressing 20 players for the BYU game. The rest of the players will have to get dressed by themselves.

A guy picked up his new Mercedes. The salesman explained that the radio had been programmed to his voice and all he had to do was tell the radio what he wanted to hear. Pretty neat stuff.

He got back into the car and said “Country music”, and old Willie started singing. “Rock and Roll”, he exclaimed, and immediately Elvis started crooning. “Easy listening”, he remarked, and all at once it sounded like he was in an elevator.

He was relaxed, driving down I-15 to Provo, and listening to smooth sounds. Then a car overtook him, almost ran him off the road and pulled away weaving and lurching all over the road. “Lousy idiots!” he screamed. The radio immediately blurted out, “TOUCHdooooooooown Utahhhhhhhh!!!!”

A BYU football player got a frantic call from his U girlfriend. “I’ve got a problem,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Well, I bought this jigsaw puzzle, but it’s too hard. None of the pieces fit together, and I can’t find any edges.”

“What’s the picture of?”

“A big rooster.”

“All right,” the BYU guy said. “I’ll come over and take a look.” The girl led him into her kitchen and showed him the puzzle on the table. “For Pete’s sake Buffy,” he exclaimed after he saw it. “Put the Corn Flakes back in the box!”

Once there was a season when the U and BYU football teams were not scheduled to play each other. It seemed so unusual, that the coaches of both academies got together and decided that there should be some sort of competition between the two teams because of their great rivalry.

They decided on a week long ice-fishing competition. The team who caught the most fish at the end of the week would win. So, on a cold northern Utah lake (a neutral site so no one would whine about home field advantage), they began their contest.

The first day, after eight hours of fishing, BYU had caught 100 fish and the U had 0.

At the end of the second day, BYU had caught 200 fish and the U had 0.

That evening Whittingham got his team together and said, “I suspect some kind of cheating is taking place.”

The next morning he dressed one of his players in blue and white and sent him over to the camp to act as a spy.

At the end of the day, the spy came back to report to the coach. The coach asked, “Well, how about it, are they cheating?”

“They sure are,” the U player reported, “They’re cutting holes in the ice!”

Is that painting I hear?