Report from the Phoenix Open: Coping with a 10-drink limit

Chic, CJ, Jaws, and Brian -- all members or honorary members of the Sunday Morning Group -- somehow persuaded the Department of Homeland Security to let them spend four days in Scottsdale without supervision, then paid for the trip by withdrawing money from their wives’ 401ks. Or so I assume. Here are Jaws, CJ, and Chic at the men's member-guest either last summer or the summer before:

In Scottsdale, they’ve been dividing their time between the Waste Management Phoenix Open and Grayhawk Country Club, a few miles away. Before they left, I swore in Chic as this blog’s official representative in the grandstands on the sixteenth hole. Getting reports from him hasn’t been easy, but here's one:

Apparently with the skybox tix u have a 10 drink limit but if u tip the girl enough she doesn't keep count. So my 10 drinks only counted as 2 in her book.

All things considered, his photos are remarkably unblurry:

Back to Chic:

The bleachers seem to be the place to be. Which was below us not below us just fiscally below us. They had guys dressed in Masters caddies outfits. Bubba thru a lot of stuff to the fans. Saturday is green out day. Everyone to wear green and support the waste management cause. Golf now then golf in the am. Then tourney rest of day.

That was yesterday. When they got to the Grayhawk, Chic discovered that he had an old Uncle Frank ball in his bag. Uncle Frank was a beloved SMG member, who died from lung cancer seven or eight years ago. After the cancer had spread to his brain, he was given a marathon radiation treatment, during which his head had to be immobilized in a halo brace, a birdcage-like contraption that was anchored to his shoulders and his skull. When the session ended, 18 hours after it began, he asked the nurses to take him to the children’s oncology ward before removing the brace. A couple of days before, at home, he had made a basketball backboard out of Styrofoam, and now he asked the nurses to attach it to the back of his head. He let the children in the ward shoot free throws with a Nerf ball, three shots for a dollars. “Hey,” he told me later, “I made twenty-three bucks.” Here's how he dressed for our first-and-almost-last clubhouse sleepover, in 2002:

When Uncle Frank died, we had his name printed on lots of golf balls, and divided them up among ourselves. The idea was to lose the balls in interesting places, so that his name would keep popping up for years, as a kind of memorial. I myself have lost them on great courses in three different countries. Back to Chic:

I thought trying to lose the frank ball in Arizona might be a nice send off. Well the ball lasted 6 holes. I tried to lose it but it hung in there. 1 pic from its adventure: