Well, it's been a week, and I've only seen Thor's post on the RSG weekend in
the Hershey PA area.  So here's my impressions of the weekend.  But first, a
word from our sponsors...

A BIG THANK YOU:
 - To Coops (Guy Cooper) for setting up all the tee times and being such a
   solicitous host (possibly at the expense of attention to his own golf).
 - To Julie Myers (Mrs. Coops) for doing a fine job of organizing the Sunday
   afternoon tournament (and allowing the RSGers to join in; it was really
   the Elizabethtown College Alumni Tournament).

Now back to our regularly scheduled discussion of golf...

THE VENUE:
Saturday: Royal Oaks near Lebanon.  Rounds in morning and afternoon.
        Coops calls it "links style."  I call it relatively flat, made more
        interesting by its use of water (in play on most back-nine holes)
        and sand (many bunkers).
Sunday AM: Dauphin Highlands in Harrisburg.
        Very hilly course.  Tough walking - um, er, climbing.  But very
        interesting, good golf.  Too new to have a rating and slope.  They
        said, "Use standard; 72 and 113."  Yeah, right!  MUCH tougher than
        that.
Sunday PM: Hershey South Course ("Parkview").
        The course is dominated by a swiftly-flowing stream about 20 feet
        wide, and the ravine it cut into the countryside.  Only six of the
        holes don't bring the stream and/or ravine into play (and it lurks
        just beyond the first row of trees on three of those holes).  The
        result is hilly golf and sometimes target golf (e.g.- the par-5
        ninth hole mandates what you do with each shot).

All three courses were a lot of fun.  I'd jump at the chance to play any
of them again.  But I'd rate them in order:
 1. Dauphin Highlands.
 2. Hershey South.
 3. Royal Oaks.

WHO WAS THERE?
        Well, by now you know that Coops, Thor, and I participated.  Here's
the lowdown:
 - Coops, Thor, and Thor's buddy Fred Stluka (Fred, you subscribed to RSG
   yet?) played all four rounds.  Except for Coops' riding in the Sunday PM
   tournament, they walked all four rounds.  Thor and Fred were the only
   ones to walk the tournament, but all the RSGers walked all the other
   rounds.
 - I joined up for the second round on Saturday and both rounds Sunday.
 - Mark Georg showed up for both Sunday rounds.
 - Stephen Payne showed up for Sunday afternoon.

Coops told me there were a lot of "confirmed" attendees who became last-
minute cancellations.  (I regret to say that two of them were buddies of
mine.)

The rest of this post will be stream-of-consciousness recollections.  Like
Thor's post, it's probably going to be a little self-centered....

ROYAL OAKS:
        Did some damage to my back in the drive out.  Never can tell when
three straight hours behind the wheel is going to cause pain.  I was walking
bent over (and worrying if I could swing a golf club) for many minutes after
arriving at the course.  I got through the golf with more worry than pain,
after popping a couple of Tylenols.  Now, more than a week later, I'm almost
all better.
        Met Coops, Thor, and Fred coming off their morning round.  First
time meeting Thor and Fred, though I've traded E-mail with both in the past.
Lunch, and back out to the course.
        My metalwoods were good early in the round.  On the fourth hole, the
landing area is pinched by a wide bunker sticking into the fairway from the
right side.  Coops and Fred had hit good drives a little too much right, and
not long enough to pass the bunker.  I hit driver, carried the bunker, and
bounced to the fairway beyond it.  Fred commented that I seemed to be
expending very little effort for the power I was getting.  I considered that
to be a real compliment, because I'm trying to keep a "leg driven" swing, with
an effortless upper body, so that's what it should look like.  When I needed
it later in the weekend, I called on Fred's comment as a swing thought.
        We played a rotating "high-low"; six holes with each guy as a partner.
Don't play teams, nor for money, in my usual group, so this was an
interesting change.  I like the "partner" aspect of the play; more about this
to come.
        On five, I chipped in for birdie from a deep grass bunker; 64
degree wedge up onto the green, and the line of roll was perfect.  Did it
again from the rough back of the green on eleven; bump-and-run the length
of the green with an 8-iron.  The whole of the last six holes, Fred kept
reminding me that I had a birdie chip-in for Coops and one for Thor, so I
owed him one.  On 18, a middling long, uphill par 4, I hit a TERRIBLE drive
and a great three-wood second that left me in the fairway 40 yards short of
the green.  Everything was close-mowed, so tried another 8-iron bump-and-run.
Hit the pin, but it didn't stay in the hole.  Fred, I still owe ya one.
        You've already read Thor's account, so I feel I must assure you that
I do NOT have faith-healing powers for golf clubs.  I'm sure it's just
coincidence that, for several holes after I handled it, Thor was busting
big tee shots from the 3-wood that neither he nor his pro had ever been able
to hit before.  And his chip-in Sunday with a wedge I had just handled was
due more to a tip I gave him than magical powers; and the tip I had borrowed
from Rotella, so it wasn't even mine.  Actually, I kinda' wish I had a little
Barnum in me.  If I did, I'd take my pension from AT&T and, armed with Thor's
endorsement, go into business "blessing" golf clubs.  ;->
        Thor beat Fred (and everybody else) very handily this round.  He
shot a career-best 84.  I understand it's the first time he's beaten Fred
EVER, but it wasn't the last this weekend.  Fred, the floodgates have been
opened.
        The thirteenth is a short par 5, which plays as target golf around a
lake that really dominates the full length of the hole.  Coops and Fred had
perfect layup shots.  Coops then cut off a bit more lake than he had intended
on the second shot, and hit it "a groove low" as Johnny Miller would say. Any
thinner, or any lefter would have been wet; as it was, the shot was
absolutely perfect, clearing the lake by inches and rolling to the middle of
the fairway just a chip from the green.  I assume he got his birdie, though
I must confess that I was in so much trouble around the green I really wasn't
watching Coops.
        Thor, Coops, and Fred were telling one another all afternoon, "Gee,
that's exactly where you hit it in the morning round."  Talk about "muscle
memory".

DAUPHIN HIGHLANDS:
        Is it morning already?  Gotta make it to Dauphin Highlands for a
6:45 AM tee time.  No, Coops wasn't crazy; the tournament at Hershey starts
at 1:30 PM, and he left an hour for the drive in case of traffic.  (I think
it took 20 minutes, but I'd rather be safe.)
        The clubhouse is at the top of a HUGE hill, with the course dropping
away on almost all sides.  (Amazingly, the first hole is UPhill.)  On the
front nine, every hole except one and nine play from an elevated tee to an
elevated green.  Some of the changes in altitude during each hole were
wearing.  (I was going to use the adjective "breathtaking", but I'll save
that for the back nine.)  The back nine drops down into the valley towards
the Susquehanna River.  10, 11, and 12 go down, all the way back up, and all
the way back down again.  13, 14, and 15 play in the valley.  The last three
get you back up to the clubhouse, but not monotonically; you have a bunch of
"down" to increase the yards of "up".
        I wouldn't play Dauphin Highlands again (a) having played the previous
day, nor (b) on the same day as another round.  I was really exhausted at
the end of the morning on Sunday.  Turned in an astronomical score on 18
(which is a very easy hole), and missed tap-in putts on 16 and 18. But I
turn 55 this month.  Young studs like Thor and Fred had no problems with it.
        Mark Georg joined us this morning.  Glad to see someone else pulling
a "trolley"; everyone else just slung the bag over the shoulder.  (No I wasn't
tempted to do that; remember what I said about my back.)  
        There were five RSG players, so we had to go in two groups.  Coops
volunteered to play with a few locals; he had called them when the extent
of the weekend "dropout rate" became clear.  That left the other group with
Mark, Fred, Thor, and me.
        Mark probably played the steadiest golf of our foursome; he always
seemed to be carding a bogey.  I would have loved to turn in a bogey round;
wound up with a 99.  Oh well, at least I broke 100 all three rounds.
        I mixed in some absolutely awful play with a few memorable pars.
- On the fifth, I hit a 3-wood 250 down the middle; perfect tee shot.
  Full-swing PW from a downhill lie to middle of the green, and two-putted.
- On the ninth, my drive was long but hooked (on a dogleg right -- whoops).
  I did stop short of the woods, but (1) in deep rough, and (2) behind a
  very tall berm, cutting my ability to see even the treetops, not to
  mention the pin.  Thor (my high-low partner at the time) stood on top of
  the berm exactly between me and the pin, to align me.  Once I had an aim
  point where he was, he moved out of range, and I put a 6-iron 155 yards
  dead over the pin to the back of the green.  Two-putted for the par.
  Thanks, Thor!
- It DOES pay to know the Rules.  On the scorecard, the fourteenth shows a
  pond on the left of the fairway; in reality, it's an ugly brown pit with
  a little standing water in the bottom.  (I DID say it's a new course; it's
  apparently still under construction.)  I hit a long drive, but with a bit
  too much draw.  It leaked over the edge of the pit, and after another 40-50
  yards of roll, into the puddle at the bottom.  Figured it as a lateral
  hazard; I'd have to drop with penalty where I entered the pit.  But when
  we got there, it was plainly marked as Ground Under Repair.  So I got a
  free drop (no penalty), and an extra 40-50 yards (nearest relief from where
  ball lies, not from where it entered).  I didn't waste the gift, and parred
  the hole.
        Fred spent the round trying to figure how to make the magic
incantation "ninety percent air" actually work.  On the sixteenth, by George
he gawt it!  Mark had an unfortunately intimate relationship with many of
the trees on the left side, and Thor had hit into the big tree guarding the
corner and got knocked straight down.  My three-wood took off for the same
tree.  While the ball was in the air and before it reached the tree, Fred
shouted, "Ninety percent air!" and it went right through.  Fred's scientific
conclusion (based on a sample of one in an uncontrolled experiment -- no,
make that a completely out-of-control experiment) is that you have to say
it AFTER the ball is struck, but BEFORE it reaches the tree.  :-)
        I got REALLY tired after that.  On sixteen and eighteen, I missed
putts under two feet; my putting hadn't been like that all weekend.  And
on seventeen and eighteen, my tee shots were atrocious.  (A whiff would
have given me better position than my actual tee shot on eighteen; but I
didn't have the presence of mind to just take stroke and distance.)

HERSHEY:
        Ah, Parkview!  I love that course from last year, and it didn't
disappoint this year.  Normally, I'm a lot less than happy about cart golf,
but (1) as noted, I was exhausted from the morning round, and (2) Hershey
South is almost as upsy-downsy as Dauphin Highlands.  So I was quite content
to settle into a cart for eighteen holes.
        My foursome included Thor, Fred, and one of the Elizabethtown alums:
Bob Geiger, class of '51 (making him considerably older than me) or maybe
'61 (making him a little older than me); didn't quite catch which.  Bob was
probably the best golfer of the lot, and the longest hitter among us.  He
certainly knew the course best in our foursome; I had played one round there
last year, and Thor and Fred had never been there.  The marshal tried to tell
Thor and Fred that they couldn't walk, but they invoked Coops' name and
walked anyway -- nobody ever gave them a hard time about it.
        The sixth hole was the Long Drive hole.  I reminded myself what Fred
had said the previous day, and relaxed into a leg-driven swing, with the
upper body just along for the ride.  Straight drive 265 down the middle.  Bob
Geiger's drive was actually longer but drew into the left rough, so I got to
put my name on the fairway marker (after advancing it more than 30 yards).
First time I've ever done that; what a rush.  (I really don't consider myself
a big hitter at all.)  And it stood up for the day; I had the longest drive.
        We all managed to survive Hershey's "amen corner" (the ninth and
tenth holes) without drowning any balls, though Thor put a couple of balls
into the right-side trees off the tenth tee.  (Found both the first shot and
the provisional, and the first shot was playable -- and well played.)
        Bob absolutely crushed tee shots on the last two holes.  Both par
fours, but he was just a chip off the green on both.  On the next-to-last,
his drive almost reached the green-front bunker; that's more than a 300-yard
drive.  (Thor's drive was even further, but well off-line to the right; he
had a good-sized wedge shot coming back.)  Eighteen is a 276-yard dogleg
left; Bob drew it perfectly around the trees, and was again chipping for
eagle.  Impressive to watch!
        With all the hubbub about softspikes, I decided to see how well I
could do without my "green aerators".  Wore comfortable walking shoes with
no spikes, all weekend.  Didn't slip during a swing.  (Well, once maybe.  At
Dauphin Highlands, the sand was much deeper and softer than it had been at
Royal Oaks.  My first bunker shot, I hadn't allowed for this, and my feet
shifted badly.  But spikes wouldn't have helped this.)  The only time I
think spikes might have helped was climbing the steep bank on the side of the
tenth green.  And I doubt softspikes would have helped here.  You gotta see
this hill; half-inch steel crampons needed at least.  Anyway, the non-spike
shoes were more comfortable for walking, and I don't think I gave up any
performance.  Gonna stick with it for a while.
        I was supposed to be the after-tournament speaker, taking Q&A on
golf equipment.  We had kind of a dead crowd (no questions), so I gave a
talk on what frequency matching is.  Big mistake; this was neither a
technical nor an RSG crowd.  Think I lost them in a hurry.  The only
questions it provoked were, "What is the frequency of Daly's zero-iron?"
and, when I was called up for the long-drive prize, "What frequency is
your driver?"

FINAL COMMENTS:

What a great way to spend a weekend!
Spent a lot of time on the golf course -- always a plus.
Plenty of exercise.  However, probably a net minus for physical condition;
        the back pain was there for days afterward.
Met -- and, in some cases, re-met -- a bunch of great people.

Coops, what's the date for next year?????

Cheers!
Dave