Hanging On to the Lead at Dineen

Whew! Sheila and I ended the day as exhausted as at least I have been for some time! I am hanging onto the lead. Sheila is just a couple of strokes out of second place but the leader in Am Masters Women is crushing the rest of the field. Her goal is to make the final four!

Hero of the day: Tim Kieffer, spotting on Hole _ at Dineen, which has a dense left-hand brush area that contains water and has been marked out of bounds. It's a tough, 540' hole requiring a precision 300+ drive into a narrow, pinched waist with the OB to the left and some dense bushes to the right. Below, Chuck Hornsby and Tim Kieffer, celebrating the return of Chuck's primary driver.

Chuck had thrown deep into the OB and when Tim went charging into the brush to find his disc, we heard bushes crackling, then silence, then a loud yelp of pain. I yelled, "Are you okay, do you need help?" Then Tim came running out, pursued by a cloud of either hornets or yellowjackets. Despite being stung many times, he then went stealthy back in and retrieved Chuck's disc. Thanks, Tim!In the first round at Dineen, I was on the card with (below, right to left, Rob Lee (TX), Howard McIntyre (NC), and Chuck Hornsby (GA). I shot a -2 and Rob moved one up on me by shooting a -3. He had been 5 strokes behind and was now only 4 behind me.
In the afternoon, Rob and I were joined on the lead card by Dennis Webster (AZ) and, of course, Pete May (GA). I had gained another stroke on Pete that morning, but he had gained enough on the field to move up to the lead card. (And he started the round wearing a pink placard saying "Lead Card" on his forehead, tacked to the long, black-haired wig with 2-foot long pigtails he had on his head. (Playing with Pete is always fun.) Left to right, below, that's Pete, Dennis, and Rob. It looks like we are still the lead card complement tomorrow morning. Behind us, off Hole 13, a group of Asian folks who were playing an interesting game, spinning tops with sticks and ropes. They were at it all day long!


The top spinners were right up on the 10-meter circle for the target. On my final drive of the day, my disc drifted left and landed among them and we were aghast when one of the picked it up and threw it under the basket. Of course, my "buddies" wouldn't let me take that lie; however, the top spinners understood that we needed the spot I had really landed on marked, and they did it for us very graciously.

Both Rob and Pete moved up on me in that afternoon round, though. I shot even par, Rob shot a -2 and Pete shot a -4. So I ended up the day still in first place, but precariously, with Rob 2 strokes behind me and Pete 5 strokes out.

Tomorrow we play the toughest course here in Milwaukee, the Brown Deer Course. Sheila, Pete, and I went there and walked it, throwing some drives, to experience the layout after our second round at Dineen. We were joined by a nice young man from Illinois named Jason. Sheila just walked, Pete and I just threw drives only, and then only on the wooded holes. But, of course, Jason played the entire 18 holes, including the three (I think) 600-700 foot wide open ones that Pete and I declined.

By the time we were done, we were totally tired, but Pete had spotted a nearby bar with a table tennis set-up and was thinking of finding some "marks." We'll find out today at 11:30 how he did.