Chilled to the Bone

Everybody knows that Arizona's major sports attraction is not the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Phoenix Suns, the Arizona Cardinals, or even the NASCAR races that turn a small nondescript corner of the Valley into one of Arizona's top-ten largest cities two weekends a year.

It's golf, folks. With the dry, temperate-to-hot desert climate that we enjoy here, you can literally golf any day of the year. (You may think I'm exaggerating when I say "literally," but keep reading.)

Your intrepid blogger, posing beside the Driving Range Shuttle as a light drizzle begins to fall. This is as dry as I got all day.

That's why Midwestern University's Chippin' in for Students Golf Classic is such a genius idea. Go knocking on doors asking for money for student scholarships, and you won't get very far. Invite potential donors to a sun-drenched private golf course for a relaxing day on the links with friends and food? Where do I sign?

As the "new guy," this year was my first Chippin' in for Students appearance. I was looking forward to it for several reasons. First, I think it's a fantastic cause - supporting the Spirit of Service Student Scholarship Program, which rewards students with financial needs who dedicate themselves to helping the community. Second, I'm very partial to golf... and golfers as well, as they are some of the most genial sportspeople in the world when they're not bemoaning a lost ball in a water hazard or cursing their club heads for not hitting the ball squarely. And last but not least, my first job that morning was to shuttle golfers to and from the driving range - and if there's one thing I love, it's driving golf carts (ask anyone around the Communications Office - they'll back me up on this).

The thing about Mother Nature is that occasionally she likes to play pranks on all of us. So when we showed up at the Arrowhead Country Club for the tournament after a week of bright sun, no clouds, and mid 80-degree temperatures, we discovered it was blustery, heavily overcast, cold, and raining. That's right - the one day of inclement weather expected for the entire month landed squarely on our big golf day.

This is where I validate the word "literally" as I mentioned above. The 140 people who showed up for the tournament, en masse, essentially looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, grinned, and slogged out to the course in their carts to play 18 holes anyway. "50 degrees, windy, and raining? You'd better bring lightning if you want to kick us off the course!" That seemed to be the prevailing sentiment.

I dearly wish I could say that I stayed for the whole event like everyone else did. Sadly, I cannot. The reason for this is that I elected to serve as the de facto assistant for the hired photographer whose job it was to spend three hours chasing down all of the foursomes to get team photos, which would later be given out as a keepsake at the event-ending dinner.

You might consider this light duty - as I did at first - but there were certain complicating factors that came into play. Of course, there was the weather. The wind and cold and rain were making the non-golfers truly miserable. I still remember Midwestern University Marketing Manager Courtney Sullivan's face when I dropped her off at the 11^th hole, where she would spend the afternoon hosting the Hole in One Challenge, and a gust of wind dumped a flood of cold rainwater on her from the roof of the EZ-Up that was ostensibly there to keep her dry. My feeling is that the smiles that most of the Midwestern employees and event support people showed to the golfers were actually frozen there.

Compounding this was the photographer, who insisted on driving the cart even though he was holding his camera equipment with one hand. Apparently unaware that a golf cart could be driven at any speed other than "full," he spent three hours driving as if he was a stunt driver in The Fast and the Furious. Instead of keeping my hands warm and (relatively) dry in my pockets where I desperately wanted to keep them, I had to hold on for dear life as we careened around the course. Soon, my hands went completely numb, which made writing notes on my increasingly soaked sheets of paper interesting (I could see the pen moving but I couldn't figure out how it was doing so).

My "crib sheets" dissolve entertainingly into a pulpy mass after two and a half hours of soaking rain.

The worst part for me was that our rental golf cart - unlike the club's carts - did not have a windscreen. This meant a constant pelting of rain on our faces and bodies at 15mph as we swerved and slid our way across the course. A couple of very poor decisions came back to haunt me here, as a) my Midwestern windbreaker revealed itself to be completely non-water-resistant, and b) my legs soon showed through my soaked khaki pants, making me (and, I'm guessing, everyone else) certain that I should have picked just about any other color available instead.

Two and a half hours after we left, we returned to the clubhouse. I went inside to eat the box lunch that was waiting for me. I couldn't figure out why my sandwich, which had been stored safely inside in a box and wrapped in cellophane, was so soggy - then I realized that water was running in rivulets down my arms and onto the bread. Hmm.

I reported to my supervisors with my waterlogged notes (entertainingly, the paper fell apart in chunks as I tried to turn the pages). I fully intended to continue lending a hand as soon as I had a chance to get my circulation going again, but Dana Fay, Midwestern University's Director of Communications, took one wide-eyed look at me and said, "Go home." I protested lamely, but she was adamant. I don't think it helped that I was leaving puddles of water everywhere I stepped.

Of course, I felt very bad for leaving early. After all, I was far from the only one exposed to the elements out there on the course (some golfers were even wearing shorts), and I didn't want to be the weak sister of the group. But Dana insisted, so I trudged out to my car, squelched wetly into the driver's seat, and headed for home.

After all of that, I learned later that not only did nearly everyone finish their 18 holes, but the Chippin' in for Students Golf Classic raised over $50,000 for the Spirit of Service Student Scholarship Program. Weather or no weather, that is a successful event - and everyone who took part got to add an entertaining war story to their personal golf anecdote collection.

They tell me that the sun even came out later on in the day. I didn't notice. I fell asleep on my couch under a pile of blankets, serenaded by the sounds of water trickling from the clothes I had hung up to dry.