With a RMJGT Championship (Rocky Mountain Junior Golf Tour, now known as the Golfweek Junior Tour) on the calendar, Dad and Ryan hit the road through snow and ice from MT to AZ for a week of golf and relaxation. Unfortunately, cooler temperatures (by Arizona standards...) and some sporadic rain clouds hung around during their visit, but this didn't put a damper on a great week for Laura and the boys.
Live at The Boulders South Course! #1 fairway and green. Dad faired better on this hole as I miss calculated my yardage and crushed a wedge off the massive boulder behind the left side of the green...
Dad and Ryan hit the course during the week to try and shake the winter rust off while I hit the desk. But our evenings were full of great food, wine, and visiting. In typical BK style, I came home one evening to a Costco-stocked pantry and wine racks. Laura and I got a few different great wine-bottle-storing wedding gifts; I must admit, with our consumption rates, we have been having a difficult time building any stock... Dad must have noticed this and headed to Costco to help us out. A very nice surprise indeed, so thank you Dad! Laura flew out on the 17th to get some quality holiday time under her belt in WA before Christmas. So the casa de Keenan was quickly flipped from house to bachelor pad for the weekend.
Ryan getting out of trouble on the front 9, great spine angle and low & left hand position at the finish!
Ryan didn't have his best outing in the tournament (Fri and Sat) and tee times barely after sunrise, leaving a good warm-up out of the question, surely didn't help... But with one more year in his age group, steady growth as a player the last two years, and arguably the best golf swing in his tour, he is perfectly poised to have a break out year in 2011! His ball-striking was a bit off which could be expected coming out of hibernation, but by mid-round the second day his putting was back to lights-out as per the usual Ry-style. Except for one overly-aggressive 3-putt on the back, he drained a string of 15-20 footers to try to keep his round together. We'll chalk this tournament up in the "another good competitive golf experience" column and try to build on it to take 'em down in 2011!
All it took was one short cold snap for it to start to look like fall in AZ.
Friday BK and CK dropped off RK at the course ( I headed up to The Boulders to visit a family friend and to smack it around a bit between jumping cholla and massive rocks. North of Scottsdale, in Carefree, the course winds through a whole different sort of desert from what I see on the way to work South of Chandler. Although I know Laura isn't with me on this... I have really found a great appreciation for the desert, its beauty (especially when the sun scrapes its way above and below the horizon), and the diversity you find within it from one place to the next. Maybe someday she'll get there... Best of luck to Ry and Dad in the coming tour season, I can't wait to watch and cheer again soon. Maybe I can get them to sneak down in Feb for a couple rounds and some spectating together at the Phoenix Open?!
On Saturday, Dad and I followed Ryan around the course for his final round and then parted ways. They got an early jump on the drive, heading West over the new Hoover Dam bridge, having been warned of a massive snow-storm pounding the freeways up North.
I was home alone for the next couple days as I finished up work and some last minute Christmas gift shopping/making.
It will be Christmas-with-the-Simpsons in Spokane this year, then off to MT for the week of New Years with the Keenans and perhaps some QT at Moose's Saloon!
Over and out,
-CK
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