Sometimes
life can seem like a movie.
Steve
Ethun |
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My destination
was the Bank of Montreal Future Links Junior at Duncan Meadows.
That's the long way of saying "Canada"-Vancouver
Island, British Columbia, Canada, to be exact. It is the second
of three events the AJGA will conduct north of the border
this year.
I left
my house in Lawrenceville, Ga., at 5: 45 a.m. en route for
Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport. I boarded my 8
a.m. flight and was on my merry way, knowing full well the
day could, and most likely would, be interesting.
And then
the movie started.
"Planes,
Trains and Automobiles" with John Candy and Steve Martin
was showing. Not on the plane ride toward Canada, but in my
life. This began the longest traveling day in my short life.
My flight
to Chicago was uneventful. I managed to sleep through the
snack and drink, but caught the tail end of "NBC In-flight"
with Soladat O'Brien. I had a quick layover to change planes
bound for Seattle. This is when the itinerary hit the breaks.
The plane was late from the connecting city - add 1.5 hours
to my day. Then, we finally board, but weather comes up all
around us in a matter of seconds, like I was in Mobile, Ala.,
Labor Day weekend or something - add 2 more hours to my day.
I landed
in Seattle three hours late, with Intern Team One waiting,
luckily, for me, ready to head north towards Vancouver. At
this point, my day was maybe half over although I had about
a net 100 miles left in my journey. I still had two different
modes of transportation to go
I jumped
in the van with trailer full of their summer equipment in
tow, and took off out of Seattle - slowly. The traffic was
unbearable. Ask anyone from British Columbia about Seattle
traffic, and they'll tell you the same thing: "OOOhhh,
yaaa. It's terrible, eh?" We thought we were out of the
mess until a car blew up on I-90, grinding traffic to a halt,
leaving truckers scrambling for an alternate route. We, on
the other hand, watched "The Ladies Man," with Tim
Meadows and waited it out. Thankfully, my life has never mirrored
that movie - not yet anyway.
By 7 p.m.
local time, 10 p.m. EST, nearing 15 hours of travel, we made
it through Customs and Immigration. It was great trying to
explain to a bunch of Canadian government employees that we
had more than $35,000 in equipment just to run a golf tournament.
Note: that is in American dollars by the way. Needless to
say, they were not aware of the production that makes up an
AJGA tournament.
Our next
leg involved getting on a ferry to take us out to Vancouver
Island. When I say boat, I should say barge. We were parked
next to semi-trucks, campers and any other mode of transportation
you could think of in the belly of a ship that could rival
the Titanic in size - but luckily a bit safer.
We pulled
into port near Victoria, British Columbia, shortly before
midnight, but 3 a.m. Atlanta time. We drove for an hour north
up Canadian Highway 1, the main drag on the island, and made
it to Duncan at 1:15 a.m., ending my marathon of planes, vans
and ferries.
After
I logged this near 24-hour travel day, I remember thinking
to myself, oddly enough, what a great experience the trip
actually was. I went from unbearable heat in Atlanta to mid-70s
temperatures with a constant cool breeze. I went from flat
land to mountainous, oceanside topography, all in a matter
of only one day.
And if
I was thinking this, I hope the juniors were as well. Sure,
they came to the outskirts of Duncan, home of the world's
largest hockey stick, to play golf, but hopefully along the
way learned something new about the world and maybe about
themselves.
While
some may say, "All this for a golf tournament?"
it goes much deeper than that. The AJGA might be all about
"Developing Golf's Next Generation," but in the
end, it seems to me like the AJGA is just helping to develop
the next generation-with some spectacular golf on the side.
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