San Diego, Take Two

Today marks the first day of my second trip to San Diego in two weeks. My dad and I are actually staying 30 miles outside the city, in Oceanside, Calif., to stay close to Tom Joliff, my dad's friend from college. Can you think of a more enticing name for a city than Oceanside? And in California no less? I'm content.

So this morning, we met Tom and took to the links at Meadow Lake Golf Club. I haven't played a round since early October so, expectations were quite low before my initial drive of '09. However, I played relatively well, considering the layoff and the complete lack of warm up prior to teeing off, and shot a mediocre 89 (44, 45) on the par-71 course.

My putting saved me for most of the day, as I hit only 2/13 fairways and 5/18 greens in regulation. I also managed to lose four balls and find myself in the woods or weeds multiple times, but I scrambled nicely throughout the day.

A few highlights of the round:

• A sand-save par on the second hole, which was the hardest on the golf course according to its handicap. Nice for my confidence to at least give a slight false sense of security before crushing my spirit!
  
• A 330-yard drive on the ninth hole that caught a couple of nice bounces off the cart path after its initial flight. I love hitting Driver-9 iron on par fives.
• My first birdie of the day, later on the ninth hole, after my eagle putt slipped a few feet past the cup. Woooooooooooh it was a two-footer big deal stop celebrating.
  
• My 11th hole, which included a drive that was torched close to 300 yards without any asphalt advances, ended in a winding, right-to-left birdie putt that dropped in -- first fist pump of the year baby! Although, it was more like this than this. I don't quite have the guns for the second one.
  
• The 13th hole brought me my first out-of-bounds lost ball of the year, as well as a delightful triple-bogey 8. Yay for snowmen!
• The 18th hole was a wild one: it started with my drive being six inches inside the penalty markers and finished with a crazy up-and-down through some trees that salvaged an 89.
• We managed to pull out 'shankapotamus' on more than one occasion. What? I can't flex the golden pipes?
  

I'm sad to say I had no batteries at the start of the day so there are no pictures of golf, but I did manage to take a few shots after my dad and I went for a run alongside the beach. The weather was amazing; a perfect sunny day with a cool breeze keeping the heat from bearing down too hard on us. I pray for the same tomorrow.
Later tonight, we found the only movie theater around that was still showing Milk and drove off to see that. I was impressed by the film and certainly believe Sean Penn deserved the 'Best Actor' Oscar he won for it. It was a truly eye-opening movie that brought back the love and the hatred of the late-1970s gay rights movement, which I knew almost nothing about prior to tonight. I'd give it a big thumbs up. Final verdict: 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Tomorrow, my dad and I will meet up with Tom and his son, James, to play at least 18 more holes of beautiful, warm golf. After that, who knows where the day will take us. But if I can manage to keep this blog updated each day until my birthday on Tuesday (and I certainly plan to), I shall reach the desired 100 posts I've been striving for. Stay tuned.