September 17-18, 2007

Helena, Montana was this past weekends predetermined destination of choice for the LCSC Warrior golf team. As we now have been accustomed too, it was, as per usual a five am start to our Sunday morning or at least as close to it as possible, no names mentioned. The bus trip was grand with the usual high spirited team, either napping in the back of the bus or up to some intense conversation about the nights prior events, any how we managed to arrive at our destination in double quick time thanks to Jim the bus drivers ability to warp us from destination to destination in a safe manner.

Refreshed and ready to go play, our practice round seemed rather slow and tedious with little excitement ever evolving from anyone on the team. It was a new course on our schedule and so past experience could be used at all, which is probably why the mood was rather somber as we were all trying to gain an understanding of the layout.

The course it self was not terribly long and not severely hard (although the wind did play a factor). It consisted of adjoining fairways running length ways across the entire property with tree placed in hedged formation to separate each hole. The entire course was well manicured and liable for some good golf however the greens once again deceived many including the LCSC men’s team. The problem was everyone tended to over read the greens rather than being deceived by some funny grain direction, as was the case of the previous week.

Both days were initially cold as is the case when one ventures up to Montana but fortunately we were blessed with a lot of sunshine as the days progressed which made up for any dreary moods. The men’s team tried to punish the course (and we nearly did) however one or two simple slip ups eventually left us in second place by tournaments end.

Rocky Mountain, being our nemesis at the moment pulled off another brutal attack by two key players in their team to oust us out of the number one spot by seven shots. We as a team played well but as well feel and know its just a matter of time before our now elusive win is rightly claimed.

Congratulations to Chris Jarrett a.k.a Teddy bear as the low scorer for the team and was placed second over all.       

Nik 

This week we ventured to the capital of Montana, Helena. We usually play our tournament at Green Meadows Country Club, where there are always problems with punched greens, but this year we played at Bill Roberts Golf Club. Green Meadows was a very tight course where ball placement was key to having a successful round. Bill Roberts was very different in layout because instead of having just a small landing area, like at Green Meadows, at Bill Roberts there was more room on one side of the fairway. The one thing I missed greatly this year was the great landscape of Green Meadows. I had a love/hate relationship with the trees that lined the course, I loved that they created a secluded course layout but hated the fact I always seemed to hit into those darn trees. Well the new course wasn’t as scenic but had it own perks. It seemed shorter than Fairmont and the greens weren’t punched with massive holes.

Last week as a team we didn’t play up to par and we all knew we needed to step up our game if we wanted to win the tournament over the deep Rocky Mountain team. Our practice round on Sunday went alright but we all knew we were playing much better than the previous week at Fairmont, really could I get any worse, I think not. Well Sunday was an extra special day because it just happened to be Jordan’s birthday. So we received a special dinner and we all sang happy birthday. Juanita and I went to bed early to make sure we would be well rested for our 36 hole round.

The first round of the day was going pretty well; I was just a few over after my first nine holes. I knew I had to continue to play well if I was going to help out the team. I had heard that as a team we were overall doing better than the week before. Well this course was about placement and my iron shots weren’t being placed in the correct areas. Sue James however played great and helped out the team tremendously shooting in the seventies for the first two rounds. Juanita also played extremely well as expected and was leading the tournament after day one. I and the others however, needed to step up our game for day two. I came back day two and played a much more confident game with some course management on my mind. Like the day before I had a few bad holes but kept my game in check and came in with an 81. Sue and Juanita finished strong and Juanita ending up taking fist place. We again placed second to Rocky and were bummed that we haven’t beat them yet.

Next week we are off to Billings. Wish us luck and hopefully we can all throw together a few good rounds to make up some stokes.

Till then fair well,

Samara Kluever