Day 6 – Monday, August 13 – Montgomery Glen Golf Course
Today is really the first day for all the hickory golfers
collecting for events. Monday and
Tuesday are practice rounds The Glen and Northern Bear GC respectively. The actual Canadian Hickory Open is played
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday all at Ron’s course – The Legends.
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| Guys waiting to tee it up. |
Today, Lloyd was the master of our Michigan group with a
good steady round of 86. I followed with
an 89, Gary 98 and Joe shot 100 even. I
had a couple of birdies one of which held up for a skin for $125. I was encouraged by my traveling mates to buy
dinner. I heartily agreed.
We checked into the Super 8 Road King Hotel in Sherwood Park
just east of Edmonton. This is a one
size fits all establishment with two restaurants, two bars, shops, laundry, and
a business center. The rooms are clean
and comfortable and that’s all you need.
A light dinner was had at the hotel.
After a few pints of Rickard’s Red, we called it a good night.
Day 7 – Tuesday, August 14 - Northern Bear Golf Course
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| Joe on the putting green at Northern Bear |
The forecast was rain.
The Jack Nicklaus course was groomed beautifully. Punishing rough closely hugged the fairways
and the greens were slicker than snot on a doorknob. I was paired with Bob from
Modesto, California, Ross from Edmonton, and Ron Lyons. All
were great company. Ron talks non-stop,
but is a lot of fun. He is a
well-adjusted individual because to him golf is just a game.
It rained. At hole-six,
we got poured on. We manned up and
played out the long par five. Then we
wimped out agreeing that it is wiser to drink in the comfort of the clubhouse
than slush out the rest of the round. It
was a brilliant decision as the rain only got worse and did not let up even as
we drove away several hours later to head back to the hotel.
Ron invited everyone back to his course for a pig roast at
5:30 pm. The rain had stopped when we
arrived. He had a great spread laid out of
salads, veggies, chips, beer, and wine.
It was simple, yet tasty. The
conversation naturally revolved around the world of hickory clubs and acquiring
good play sets. Bob from Modesto has
only had the hickory bug for nine months and has already purchased 500
clubs. Max from Texas has collected hickory
clubs and played them for many years. He
has accumulated 17,000 hickories. They
are organized in racks in his basement (shrine). There a couple of local fellows who make
custom hickory golf sets pattern after a set of Tom Stewart clubs designed for
Bobby Jones. All these guys are hickory
and golf geeks.
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| Ron's Pride and Joy - 1955 BMW golf cart |
Ron has to top the list in collection interesting historical
golf equipment. He decided to specialize
in collecting golf carts (cars as they are called in Canada). He has about 50 vintage electric and gas golf
carts dating back to the early fifties.
It was an impressive group on display in a pole barn near the golf
course clubhouse. His favorite is a red
1955 BMW gas cart. He stated that there
is a picture of JFK driving an exact model on the White House lawn with a pile
of kids sitting on it. The whole
collection was interesting. He had a
before picture on the seat of each cart to give us a perspective of how much
restoration was needed for each car. He
said his original intent was to get four or five old carts to put out on the
course for antique decoration. It then
evolved into repair and restore and collect.
The evening presented fascinating conversations with fellow
golfers from all over Canada and the US.
There are three more days and the group is growing.
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