Trees are 90 percent air

I met my cousin, Joe, and my Uncle Joe at Rolling Meadows Country Club in Ellington, Connecticut, for 18 holes last Saturday and had a blast.

Although it has "country club" in its name, the course is public and it is absolutely beautiful. Immaculate greens, nice wide fairways and great customer service.

We were met on the first tee by the course ranger who explained the course and one of its coolest features ... usually courses use a wooden or metal marker of come kind to delineate when you're 150 yards from the pin. At Rolling Meadows, they use a rounded bush. It's a little thing to be sure, but yet something unique.

Also fun was the beer cart that came around several times. It was about 10:30 a.m. the first time we saw it and while I was not looking for a beer or a shot (we had just gotten a round of Bloody Marys from the bar after completing the front nine), I just had to buy a beer from the cart because I could. So, $4 and one Corona Light in a can later, I was good to go.

Overall I did fairly well (we didn't keep score). As usual, I made some really great shots, a lot of mediocre shots and many bad shots.

One of the best holes I had was the 15th (433 yards, par 4). I absolutely crushed the tee shot for about 310 yards ... it was just perfect (one of only a small few I had that day). My next shot was with my 3-Wood and I crushed that too ... another perfect shot and I landed about 10 yards away from the pin (which was at the front of the green). On both of these shots, it just felt amazing. As soon as I hit the ball, I knew they were good shots ... just felt and sounded "right".

Anyway, I hit a sweet pitch shot onto the green and then two-putted, so even though I bogeyed the hole, all three of my approach shots were very satisfying.

With the good news always comes the bad and there most bizarre thing happened to me all day ... I had a wicked hook in my drives. I have absolutely no idea where the hell this came from but damnit if I couldn't stop hooking the ball. It took me a few holes to diagnose what I was doing ... I was cupping my hands at the top of my back swing which closes the club head at impact. Even figuring this out didn't help much because I kept hooking my drives. Really, really strange because I can literally count on one hand the number of times I've ever hooked my drives (I usually have some kind of slice). Something else to work on, I guess.

All in all, it was a great day on the course. Had a lot of fun with my cousin and uncle and we're going to be a tourney in October at another course in the Nutmeg State, so we have that going for us ... which is nice.