So, last week while I was eating pizza at Cecil Whittaker's with Linda and mooching free beers from Mark Dudenhoeffer, Al was busy winning the Lake Cumberland Open, a B-tier in Nancy, Kentucky. Sue finished 2nd to Lesli. Dave was messing around in Michigan.

I left Linda's house on Wednesday morning and drove eight+ hours to Toledo, Ohio to meet Dave, who was getting dropped off by his folks. From there Dave and I shot a round at the Bowling Green, Ohio course, then drove a couple more hours.... got a room for the night... got up and drove the remaining five hours to the Tinicum course, just north of Philadelphia for the Eric Yetter Memorial. It was getting dark by the time we pulled into the course, and at the same time, Al was driving the Winnie out of the entrance. He led us to the campground where we caught up on what had been going on.

The Tinicum course was set up in the super-duper long configuration -- 8200+ feet for 18 holes -- so we practiced it twice to make sure we knew all the danger zones. After the first day Al and Dave were both on the lead card, and I was on the top of the 3rd card in a tie for 9th. On the second day some of the pins got switched around to shorter positions. Dave had a rough morning round and dropped to a tie for 10th. In the 4th round he moved up into a tie for 8th and cashed about $150. I shot well enough to put me in 5th after the 3rd round and hit the course record -7 in the 4th round to shoot into a tie for 2nd with Craig Gangloff. Al shot steady in the 3rd round and popped a -6 in the final round to win the Yetter by two strokes. Sue didn't cash and I'll leave the details out.

We collected up some good cash and headed to a hotel room for a night of much needed rest before the monstrous drive to Huston. Monday morning Sue jumped into my car and headed back to Michigan. She has some personal stuff to take care of and will meet back up with us in Augusta, GA in a couple weeks.

Al and I put in a heroic driving effort and we pulled into Texarkana at 3:30 on Tuesday afternoon for our traditional 'on the way to Houston' round. A few sweaty hours later we piled back into the Winnie and drove the remaining five hours to Tip Felter's house, where we would be staying for the next several days. Not bad... 1500+ miles with a round of golf in the mix in 37 hours. Tip and his wife have made us feel very at home. The air-conditioned house is real nice too.

Oh! I forgot to mention that we were pulled over by Johnny Negative (the Law) again as we crossed the state line into Alabama. He followed us for a bit before giving me the disco lights. I pulled right over and asked if I was doing anything wrong, although I knew I wasn't. He didn't answer me and just wanted to know where the Vehicle Identification Numbers were on the Winnie. I showed him. He claimed that the police computer said that my plate was registered to a 93 Winnebago. We all decided it was a DOT mistake and he let us go after looking around the inside a bit. I was sort of hoping we could make it the whole year without getting searched... ah well. We moved on.

This morning we played the annual ball golf/disc golf challenge. Once again the disc golfers mucked it out in the rain and walked away victorious! This time it wasn't even close. The ball golfers are calling for a different format. They claimed that "Tiger Woods couldn't have beaten you guys." High praise. We didn't even shoot as well as last year... we played pretty well though.

So, this weekend we'll play the Texas State Championships and then it's off to Miami, Florida. That'll be another big drive. The Winnie is doing great. She was backfiring a little and the exhaust was loud when we left Tinicum but I tightened up the header bolts and found a loose spark plug wire. Since then she's been running like a top. But that's life on the Professional Winnie Driving Tour.

See you all soon. Miss you Smith. -Todd

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