Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

We’re getting older. That’s the consensus opinion at this year’s tournament. It was a tough conclusion for most of us to reach, being as young as we are, personally. But some of our fellow players are definitely getting a little long in the tooth. The primary topic of conversation before and after play was the question of including some children, less than 50 years old, in the mix. How do you do that when applications for entry exceed the number of openings and you don’t want to simply discard guys who have supported the tournament for 20+ years?

One of my partners this week spent a short span of his life, but a huge part of his youth on Iwo Jima manning a tank flamethrower. Another had a high school coaching job lined up right out of college in 1950 and ended up in Korea. He said, “Next thing I knew, I had 31 years in the Army.” I’m one of the youngest in the group at 51. Because the group is aging, handicap indexes are climbing.

It really is a little thing. I am a borderline B player in general. A players would typically carry an index in single digits, with B players being in the next range up to around 15. I’m at 14.1 and just missed being in the “good player” group this week. What that means is that the best player in each group was not significantly better than the next. That doesn’t mean the competition wasn’t good, but that the level of play will continue to decline.

Anyway, the day Dad and I were on the same team we took first place for the day. His team yesterday also took first at 11 under par. My team only managed 5 under. I didn’t feel like I played well, but looking back afterwards I realized that I got us two or three of those birdies. In the C rankings, Dad finished in second place overall, and I took third or fourth in the B rankings. So I put some of the entry fee money back in my pocket, and Wednesday’s win paid for my gas on the trip.

Nothing to impress Tiger Woods, but I feel pretty good about it all. Bogey will be here in San Antonio tomorrow, and we’ll play Pecan Valley while the wives shop.