The Big Cup

The favorite golf tournament of the year at Maxwelton for the past three decades has been the Big Cup. It started when I was in college and I loved coming home to play in it.  I remember at first thinking that the enlarged cups for the tournament would be as big as a bucket. Honesty, that didn’t make sense. Cups that large would completely destroy the greens. Instead, the cups, were about 2 to 3 times the size of a normal hole.  At first it sounded like that would make it a lot easier to score, but the pin placements in the tournament were always some of the hardest. It was so much fun to play in as you never knew where your ball was going to go on the green and you felt like an eagle was possible on every hole.

This weekend, Grandpa invited Cal and Cameron to play with him in the Big Cup. I was so glad that both of them were free. I hoped that they would do well, but knew that no matter they would have a lot of fun.  Grandpa found a fourth to play with them and my expectations were correct. They had a wonderful time together this afternoon.

The foursome started out fourteen which is one the hardest holes at Maxwelton no matter what tournament is scheduled. They were happy to make par, but were a little bum that they then parred the next four holes as several of them were typically counted as birdie holes. When they got to number one their par streak changed for the better.  They went on to shoot 12 under on the next 14 holes. The highlight was an eagle on number two that they hoped would hold up for a skin. Grandpa almost had a hole-in-one on three with the ball just rolling over the cup. Their final score of 12 under was good enough to tie them for third place. Unfortunately, they lost in a back up. That was made even worse by the fact that their eagle on two was cancelled by another team, knocking them out of the skin pot.

I heard from Cal, Grandpa, and Cameron tonight. My dad had also texted out pictures.  Thus, I could see and hear just how much fun the three of them really  had today. I loved listening to all of their stories.  I remembered feeling that same way years ago when I played in the annual event.  I hung up incredibly thankful that the day had gone so well for them no matter the outcome.