Day Five: Boyne Highland – Donald Ross (he’s an asshole) and Moor

Just waking up and doing my photo download and upload from the day before, before we head out to Donald Ross and Moor for the day (haven’t looked at the weather, but there is a threat of rain today). My news feed kept showing up Love Field shooting and had to look. Wow. A woman went in and started shooting yesterday in Love Field! We were just there on Saturday morning (on a positive note when we were there: don’t think that 430 a.m. is a “prime shooting time” anywhere). Seems that this woman just shot up at the ceiling in the airport until they arrested her.

Today we’ll be heading back to the Highlands to play the Donald Ross Memorial and the Moor (hopefully Tom and Levi can ride the boards at the Moor). This troop gets up and going early. I’m used to having the first floor to myself at the cabin. But, Tom gets up. Then Levi. Then Pete. It’s only 5:38 a.m. and everyone is ready to go.  Back to the Highlands for breakfast.

Same omelet guy as Monday. The guys from DFW that we met at Bay Harbor are there. Along with a guy wearing a Dallas Athletic Club t-shirt – and a couple from Prestonwood. DFW is represented in Northern Michigan this year (can you blame us – it’s in the 70s here and in the 100s in Dallas).

It’s different having GPS on the carts this year. Highlands never has had GPS. The only bad thing is that they have restrictors on areas that they don’t want you to go to. But don’t give you much advance notice about these areas. Tom wanted to do a board, but the guy in the pro shop said no because of the potential of rain. He’s bummed. We head out onto the Donald Ross Memorial, 18 “iconic” Donald Ross holes (I personally think that they chose the hardest of the holes because this course plays tough).

Donald Ross Memorial "Holes"

Turkey!

And after all of this, Tom misses the Eagle putt.

Finally see a deer on the course. And a turkey!

We make the “turn” at the halfway house that shares with Arthur Hills. At the turn (getting ready to play “the birdhouse hole” with its grassy mounds with colored birdhouses – we think so you can say, “I hit it into the gunk over near the orange birdhouse”):

Me: What do you think of Donald Ross Memorial so far?

Levi: He’s an asshole.

There are lots of raspberries on Ross. We enjoy.

Raspberries!

Hole #15 is closed for a redo. Looks like they redid the tee boxes and bunkers. They were resodding them so should be close to done. A lot of machinery. Should have taken some video to show Woodbridge how hole redo should take place.

Surprising, except for the two holes I skipped, I played all of Ross. And not poorly. And, we had the course pretty much to ourselves (maybe rain related) this morning. Lunch at Country Club of Boyne. Tom is bummed – they don’t have sweet potato fries here (they also don’t have Blue Light beer). But, he goes to the pro shop and rents a board for the afternoon – and checks to see if we can get off earlier than 1:30 p.m. (we can). Nice lunch then Pete and I load up on a cart so that Levi and Tom can ride boards this afternoon. One thing about the boards is the lack of storage (I’d have trouble with all of my stuff).

The Moor opening holes are not spectacular. In fact, the Moor isn’t really on our top list. But, it’s included in the package and not bad. Just not great. The first par 3, #4, is lengthy – I think I had 160 yards from the forward tees.

At round 9, this is when I get tired, golfed out, and the ball, that already has lost distance, has lost even more distance. I invoke a new rule for me: taking someone else’s tee shot.  This makes this round more enjoyable for me.

When we make the turn, we see our new buddies from DFW getting ready to tee off on the Moor.

The Moor backs up to Heather on a couple of holes – the fence on the par 3 #12 – and the bathrooms on the par 5 #5 (yes, I know where all of the bathrooms are on the courses – when you’re drinking beer, it’s important to at least “try.”). On #17, par 3, we let a young man go through – skinny, Will Zalatoris like – with an outfit that Levi says: “He needs his mom to dress him.” His shorts are super tight and hiked up. He makes Levi, Pete and Tom look pretty lumpy and old.

When two of your four are on boards, the cart gets a little full of stuff.

And, down goes Levi.

This kid "needs his Mom to dress him" per Levi. His shorts are REALLY high and snug.

Levi and Tom are enjoying their boards – but Levi’s has a left tilt to it. He goes down once – I called it. But jumps back up. On 17, he and Tom swap boards. And Tom finds out that Levi didn’t have the power on high, so that was the problem with the tilt and the speed. I think Tom called Levi a “dingbat.”

The Moor ends with a par 5 that you can cut the corner on to get to in two. Oh, and a willow tree. Levi and Tom make birdie on 18 to end the day of golf.

Done with the Moor and load up and head to Lume (http://www.lume.com), the “pot shop” in Petoskey (they now have two stores). “Big Buds, Big Bags, Big Savings.” One worker in there was helping out his mom. It was amusing to hear him explain the different gummies to her. And her comments about them. Edibles were 25% off. Then to T mobile to deal with Pete’s phone. We drop him off and then Tom, Levi and I go across the street to Appleby’s for a drink while we wait for him to get done. It’s at least 45 minutes and we go pick him up and head to the tavern for dinner at the Mountain.

Field trip to Lume, the pot shop.

Nice packaging on their gummies.

I get a text from Tony to call him. We order at the tavern at Boyne Mountain. I give him a call. AC is out at the house (and we have excessive heat advisory at 100+ degrees). Great. I suggest he call Frymire that evening and not wait until morning. The reason we have a maintenance agreement is so we can get them to come out quicker. Poor babies in a house that was already 85 degrees. Tony got another fan out of the garage. Abby decided that the tile floor in the guest bathroom was the place to be. We’re on the standby list to come out on Thursday. Great. I didn’t rub in that the high was about 75 in Michigan.

Abby on tile cooling off with no AC.

[NOTE: I am not blogging live. Right now, I’m sitting on the floor in our cabin at Boyne Mountain, trying to drink coffee, blog and stretch at the same time. Internet is also slow and my photos aren’t uploading to email quickly.]