That man would be Manuel de la Torre, as quoted by Nick (not sure I got an exact quote) and perhaps everyone else who's ever taken a lesson from him. More on that later...I was told today that this blog has a lot more loyal readers than I thought - thanks to all of you for being so loyal! I figured it would be a good idea not to leave you guys hanging on the last day, so I'm typing this post as soon as I could after getting back to campus.
So here we go, the final day on Jekyll Island! Nick and Ben were up earlier than anyone else, leaving the condo at around 7:45 am with Angie to get to their lessons with Manuel (I mentioned in the last post, but Angie took a half hour lesson to start things off). I got up from the pull-out bed downstairs right as they were leaving and realised I was way behind after passing out so easily the night before, so I got a bowl of cornflakes and wrote my post for day 6 (I'm starting out in pretty vivid detail, let's see if I can keep this up...). So after a while Dan and Matt Butler started stirring, preparing to leave for the course at around 9 am, and during that time Ellen came over and had some breakfast on turned on MTV for a bit... After Dan and Matt Butler left I was alone in the condo - I was planning on spending some time on the beach, but instead I made a quick beach visit to say goodbye to the ocean (wasn't the final goodbye though, the picture above was the final goodbye) and then wrote a short story for my afternoon class that I missed today. After that I tried my best to clean up the place a bit before our noon deadline to checkout, so I did about 45 minutes of cleaning, hopefully the place looked ok... from there the remainder of us (me, Ellen and Jordan) checked out and headed out to the golf course.
When we got to the course everyone who was already there was just finishing their lunch (I just ate as many leftovers as I could handle back at the condo), and it appeared Manuel was eating with them - I have to stress what an amazing opportunity it was to have Manuel with us for the day, I mentioned this before but he's a PGA Hall of Fame Instructor and is now 87 years old. And he REALLY knows his stuff.
Matt Butler and I invented a new brand of Bochi Ball Golf - this time with chipping rather than putting. It mostly follows the same rules as the putting version, only we made some variations in how we took turns hitting (the person furthest from the hole always hits next). I got revenge for the trouncing Matt Butler (remember, he should always be referred to as Matt Butler, never Matt) gave me in the putting version - I pulled off a 24 1/2 to 17 1/2 victory!
I had the last lesson with Manuel. His style is that he asks a lot of simple questions with simple answers - it feels good being able to keep golf so simple. For instance, he asked a few of us what do we want when we golf, and the answer was simply "to be consistent" (might be a slight misquote too, excuse my haphazardness). I had a lesson with him 2 years ago on our spring break trip toAmelia Island, FL, and I came out with a great feeling both times. I had been struggling with my swing all week, but after a few minutes with Manuel I was hitting some perfect shots (even some with a little bit of draw, which is a shock considering m ball flight all week - at least I know it impressed Ben). Manuel is a bonafide legend - he's been driving around by himself, and after we were done Martha asked him where he was going today, and he just said "wherever I end up", and then he drove away, as if he was riding off into the sunset... (it was about 2:30 pm, so unfortunately there was no sunset to ride off into).
After Manuel left us awestruck, we successfully packed the van back up and headed to the beach one last time to get a group picture (the very on at the top of this post). While we were still on the beach, Angie took a couple of pictures of Dan and Ben that are instant classics - I'd put them on this blog, but I need permission from Dan and Ben first... stay tuned in case they say yes... I think common concensus was that the Dan/Ben pictures pretty much formed a perfect summary of the trip (Jordan also took a good one in the van ride back to Jacksonville).
So yes, after leaving the beach we left Jekyll Island, and then after a quick transition at the airport we left Jacksonville, had what I'd call a pretty decent plane ride (we had some good stories to tell about the players we played with from Ferrum College in Virginia - at least Dan did), and then we landed as MSP at almost exactly 8 pm local time. Then we waited for our bags for a good half hour, Vanessa came and picked us up in a van and we made our way back to Mac, stopping just past the intersection of Macalester Street and Grand to unload the van and go our seperate ways. At that point I guess you can say the trip was over for good. It's gonna take a little while to get back into Mac mode (writing this blog entry is helping to delay that a bit), but we're all pleased to be back.
And that was Mac Golf Spring Break 2009, Jekyll Island!!! I hope you had a lot of fun reading this blog, thanks to those of you who've been checking every night (and everyone else reading this at all), it's been a pleasure!
I guess my only regret is that I didn't get to say a proper farewell to Junior... probably for the best, I wouldn't have wanted him to confuse me for a deer...
Oh, and guess what JUST happened - JAPAN ARE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC CHAMPIONS!!! They just beat Korea a few minutes ago. And guess who were the two key players for Japan in the final? Uchikawa and Ichiro, the two players I honored with my ball markings during the tournament! Coincidence? I think not!
- Colonel
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