Marilyn and I took a brief little two night getaway to the Stonewall Resort in Roanoke, WV this past Sunday and Monday. Beautiful place and only a little over two hours away from Pittsburgh. Nice swimming pool, great weather and scenery, terrific food. Marilyn has a spa treatment while I played golf on the resort's "Arnold Palmer Signature Course" and enjoyed perhaps my best round of the year.
Now before I tell you about it, take a look at this thirty second video, which you may have seen on commercials during last week's PGA Championship:
The PGA of America has been running this "Tee It Forward" campaign for a few years now to encourage golfers to play from the tee markers that best suit their games. Hey, I figured if it's good enough for Jack Nicklaus, I should be heeding the advice, so I elected to play from the course's "Senior Tees", and played from tees that shortened the course by about 400 yards. As a result, I was reaching fairways and having better shots into the greens all day. My score was 49-52-101, which may not be great, but when you've been shooting in the area of 108 all summer, it was HUGE improvement. My biggest problem was six three putt greens. Shorter tees do not, apparently, have any effect on your putting.
Anyway, I wish more golfers would accept the PGA's and Nicklaus' advice and pay from the proper tees. They are there for a reason. However, I have known too many golfers over the years whose egos would never let them "play from the golds". Too bad. They'd enjoy it more, and play faster to boot.
Speaking of golf, while we were at Stonewall, the boys and girls golf teams from a Pittsburgh area high school were staying at the lodge and conducting their golf team tryouts while we were there. Tough life, huh? Anyway, I will not embarrass this school by naming it, but I will say that it is a private school, calls itself an "academy", and is located in Sewickley. On two occasions we were in the resort restaurants with the teams and on both occasions, the members of the boys' team sat in the dining area, ate their meals, and left their hats on. And, yes, the coaches were in the room at the time and did not tell them to remove their hats. Even worse, in the lobby on Monday morning, Marilyn witnessed several members of the girl's team appear to shun one of their teammates who also happened to be a minority.
So, tuition of $24,000 a year (we looked it up) appears to get you nice golf clothes and equipment, an opportunity to tryout for the team at a fancy resort, and lots of connections later in life resulting from wearing the Old School Tie, but it apparently it doesn't teach you some basic life skills such as good table manners and how to treat your fellow man with decency.
Very disappointing.
