Had a nice visit and small BBQ party with Marilyn and Steve yesterday. A few friends, a couple kids, lots to drink and more Pulled Pork.
Bocce and croquet, too.
My recovery continues
Played 18 on Friday with no problems with the knee during the round. It was a little sore Friday evening but nothing too bad so I decided to play in the senior club championship afterall.
Seedings in the tournament are by handicap following the defending champ who gets the #1 seed. I was seeded seventh which meant that I had to play the #2 seed, the lowest handicapped player in the tournament.
I played as well as I have in a long time and had my opponent on the ropes for most of the match. I opened up with a par and a birdie and quickly went up 2 holes. My opponent fought his way back and managed to tie the match by the seventh hole when he executed a beautiful sand save for a par. I failed to get up and down from about three feet off the back of the green when I missed a five footer for my par.
On the eighth hole, I went one down when I was overly agressive on a downhill 12 footer to win the hole. I slid about four feet past the hole and missed the comeback putt.
My par on nine evened the match when my opponent failed to get up and down from the back fringe of the green. I wound up shooting a 41 for the nine.
Another par on the par three tenth put me one up when my opponent once again failed to get up and down from off the green. The next three holes were all halved with a bogey and two pars so going into 14 I still held onto a one hole lead.
The 14th is a long par five and I laced a drive just into the right hand rough while my opponent wound up in a fairway bunker so I felt comfortably in control. He did manage to advance the ball about 150 yards with a decent recovery shot. I good lie but a downhill stance but as I swung my right foot slipped right out from under me. I only advanced the ball about 40 yards still in the rough. I was about 250 out but the ball was sitting up in the rough so I decide to take an aggressive cut at the ball. Bad move. The ball went off of the toe of the club deep into impenetrable brush and trees to the right. I had to take an unplayable and the hole was basically lost right there as my opponent made par.
That evened the match up but my confidence was gone. I staggered over the next three holes with a bogey, double bogey, double bogey and my opponent went par, bogey, par to close me out 3-1.
All in all, I was pretty happy with my play though. For 13 holes, I was just six over, which is as well as I’ve played in a long time. Plus, the best part was that the knee held up just fine so it looks like I can get back to my normal 5 rounds or so a week.
Passed another milestone
Our men’s golf league plays on Wednesday nights and I hit the links for the first time since my surgery. After an extremely shaky start I settled down and played the last few holes ok. I had a dreaded case of the hooks for the first three tee shots and I think it came from a subconscious fear of transferring weight to my left side. Once my mind accepted the fact the knee wasn’t going to hurt everything started to turn around.
Further evidence that my recovery was going well was that I didn’t have any additional inflamation this morning when I woke up. I’m going to try a full 18 holes tomorrow and assuming that things hold up OK, I’ll play in the club championship starting Saturday.
Updates will follow.
UncleLar mWow VI – That Girl Emily
Haven’t done any mWow’s in a while but when I ran across this one I thought it deserved a link.
It just goes to prove that there’s nothing like a women scorned.
That Girl Emily is a blog by a “29” year old woman who was cheated on by her husband. Shortly after she started her blog she found out about his philandering and detailed her revenge in her blog. She got him back pretty good and I almost feel sorry for the guy. She was a communications major in college so she actually writes pretty well and the whole saga is quite entertaining.
The above link is to the last blog post but the blog really should be read from the first post on so just here which is the first post in the blog, then click on the July archive (or here) remembering to read from the bottom up.
I don’t know what sucked me into the blog – maybe it’s because my ex’s name is Emilie. But the first few posts are just Emily rambling on about herself and her husband with a few hints about their boring sex life when all of a sudden she finds out hubby is cheating with her best friend. Then the fun begins.
She starts out saying:
They think they can just walk away from this. Their games have been played for the last month. Months? My games are just starting. They don’t know what kind of shit they’ve just stepped in. Flies everywhere. I have friends in high and low places. It’s time to call in some favors. It’s time to draw up my own games. It’s time for them to feel what I’m feeling. Everyone reading this blog will have front row seats.
and she wasn’t kidding.
She even includes photos of some of the things she did:
How about packing up her husband’s porn collection and sending it to his parents – just a classic.
Hope you find the blog as entertaining as I did.
Why this picture?
I’ve been using a version of this photo that I have on Facebook in my profile on Blogger. Evidently, Blogger has installed new software that limits the url length of your profile photo to 64 characters and my Facebook link exceeds that. When I inser the photo in this post, it gets uploaded to Gary’s Blogger server and I can now link my Blogger profile to the photo on Gary’s server.
FWIW – the girls, from left to right, Vanessa Fiore, Ashely Schlosser, Susan Kim, and Taylor Baker, are all students hired as Bacardi girls here in State College. They appear at various bars and functions here in town to promote Barcardi products (usually not quite dressed as well though) and were doing such at the martini contest.
Now that that is out of the way, here’s a complete recap of my surgery todate.
The surgery went exceptionally well and everything was super…. but only for about 24 hours.
The surgeon was right. I was able to walk out of the clinic without any problems. I even stopped by the golf course Thursday afternon and went to the Spikes game Thursday night. Friday morning I woke up with a little soreness behind the knee but nothing that was at all a problem. I was even telling people that my left knee (the one that was operated on) was feeling better than the right one (and that was the truth).
Then all of a sudden things changed.
I was crawling on my floor. monkeying around with one of my backup computers, and then got up. Getting up was a little awkward because the knee didn’t have a lot of flexibility. I didn’t particularly notice anything pop or pull as I got up but as soon as I put weight on my left leg, the knee hurt like hell. The knee quickly started to hurt and swell. I pretty much became immobilized – I couldn’t put ANY weight on the leg at all without excruciating pain shooting through the knee. I very quickly put myself to bed (the only moving that I would do around the townhouse was confined to inching along on my hands and butt). And the pills didn’t seem to do much to help the constant pain in the knee. My ambitious plans for the weekend suddenly went all to hell.
For the next 24 hours I really didn’t get much sleep.
Things started getting better by Sunday. The constant pain started to come under control and I could switch my pain medication from Vicodin for pain to ibuprofen to address the inflammation in the knee. I was also frequently icing the knee to try to control the swelling. By late Sunday afternoon I was able to get around the townhouse pretty well by leaning on things and using my walking golf cart (bottom floor of the townhouse only) and a seven iron as crutches.
Today was even better. I’ve been able to find a couple of comfortable positions in bed so I can sleep well. The swelling in the knee has come down considerably. The knee can pretty much bear my weight without any shooting pains. I can now walk around the townhouse without having to hang on things to maneuver. I no longer have to butt hop up and down my stairs as I can safely scale them one step at a time. I also no longer need to improvise crutches (although I am continuing to use the seven iron as a cane – more of an emotional support than anything). And most importantly, I was finally able to stand up long enough to take a shower!
I’m going to try to start bringing my life back to normal in the next couple of days. My stitches come out Wednesday and my objective is to make our men’s golf league Wednesday night… as a spectator only. I’ve given up on my original plan to play – my playing plans are to be ready to play Wednesday a week with maybe a practice round that Tuesday. I’m bummed that I missed the Spikes games this weekend but the way that they are playing I evidently didn’t miss much. I do plan on making the Spikes game this Thursday though.
That’s where things stand at the moment.
Tennessee Vacation
More photos (not a lot) can be seen here.
A Narrow Escape
We had some crazy weather here in NH on Friday night. Severe thunderstorms paired with winds at 55+ mph didn’t mix well with the repairs being made to Portsmouth’s North Church Steeple. The entire steeple and the scaffolding came crashing down at about 6pm. No one was injured and my car narrowly escaped being completely totaled. Check out the video on this newscast. My car is BEHIND the Jeep that was ruined and next to the black truck.
Larry’s knee (an insider’s view)
Home from surgery and resting. Everything went well. I walked out of the clinic without a problem. Here are some photos tsken off of the arthoscopic camera as it paraded around inside my knee.
Right in the middle of this shot, you can see some of the fraying cartilege.
Here is clearly a frayed loose piece of cartilege floating around getting in the way of normal knee movement.
In this shot, you can see the tool on the right which has just gone in and zapped, chopped, pureed, or something the loose cartilege piece and sucked it up.
On the right center of this shot you can see how the cartilege has been noticeably worn away.
Here’s all sorts of crap floating around in the knee (I believe the bubbles are actually generated by the tool doing its job, they aren’t typically there).
In this last shot, the tool in the lower right corner has just finished snipping away at the cartilege between 5 and 6 on the clock dial. The thing looks like PacMan the way that it snips away at the cartilege. I think the idea is to create a cleaner non frayed edge to the cartilege.
The doctor actually gave me a 15 minute cd video of the operation as seen through the camera that these still were taken from. It’s quite fascinating to watch. If Gary has enough room to host a 0.5 GB file, I’ll send him a copy and we’ll upload it for all to watch. It sure beats the simple old xray that I got the last time I had my knee operated on 40 years ago.
I feel really good. The pain is quite minimal, probably less than what I have been normally experiencing. I’ve got a bunch of Vicodin tablets that he prescribed for any pain but I currently don’t see any need to take them. There’s a Spikes baseball game tonight and I’m really tempted to go, I feel so well. The doc said I was cleared to go to the game tomorrow but I didn’t even think to ask him about tonight. He did say to take it easy today but I’m figuring sitting in a seat at a baseball game can’t be all that much of a strain. The game isn’t until 7:00 so I have a while before I have to decide.
Going under the knife (and more golf)
Today’s the day that I get my knee scoped. Surgery is scheduled for 12:45. I’m told it should take about 45 minutes and that I’ll be walking out of the outpatient facility by about 3PM. I purposely scheduled the operation for a Thursday in the hopes that I could avoid missing any of my Wednesday night men’s league golf matches. My surgeon said I should be back on the golf course within a week so I’m hopeful I can play next Wed night.
Speaking of men’s league golf, my partner, the previously blogged Lanny Sommese, and I had an almost legendary match last night. We play nine hole matches with two points available on every hole, low net wins a point, high net loses a point (we keep league handicaps according to USGA rules and play the matches at an 80% handicap).
Our match was a big one for the league standings. We were in seventh place and were playing the fourth place team who was just 3 points ahead of us in the standings (you get two points for a win, one for a tie).
Lanny and I started poorly and were down 6 points after five holes (for the math challenged, that means there were only 4 holes or eight points left so we were in a pretty big hole). Coincidently though, Lanny and I hold the league record for the greatest comeback when last year we rallied from the exact same 6 and 8 deficit to win by one. We almost did it again.
We won two points on the sixth hole of the match, halved the seventh hole, and won two points on the eigth. That left us down two with one hole to play. Last night’s matches were a shotgun start and our match had started on the ninth hole, so we were finishing on the eighth hole.
The eighth hole is the #1 handicap hole on the course. From our tees, it’s a 576 yard par five with a small stream that runs down the left side of the fairway for the last 250 yards. Because it’s the #1 handicap, three of the guys in the foursome were getting strokes on the hole. Our opponents, Roger (6 handicap) and Bill (4 handicap), had honors. Roger hit a good drive about 210 yards down the middle of the fairway. Bill pulled his drive along the treeline to the left but it wound up safely in the rough about 230 from the tee. Lanny (11 handicap) hit a perfect drive about 240 down the middle. I (16 handicap) was up last and caught my ball very thin, failing to clear a hill in the fairway that crests at about 180 yards off the tee.
Then. for my next shot, I absolutely smoked my hybrid three iron hitting it about 220 yards to the dead center of the fairway about 190 out. Roger was up next and hit a decent five wood about 10 yards inside of me. Bill made a great save out of the rough and hit a rescue club to about 130 out. Lanny pulled a three wood just left of the stream ending up in the rough about 150 out.
I was up first need to come up with a shot. I responded, hitting the same hybrid club 190 onto the green but a decent way from the hole (the pin was tucked inside the bunkers on the left and my shot ended up on the far right side of the green). Roger, feeling the pressure, pulled his five wood slightly and wound up in the left bunker protecting the front of the green. Because Lanny was getting a stoke I encouraged him to not get suckered into going pin hunting saying that all we probably would need was a ball on the green and two putt to pull out a tie. Playing strategically, Lannie hit a 7 iron to the fat of the green but because he was coming in from the left angle, it travelled to the far right. The green is also two tiered and Lanny’s ball rolled up onto the second tier while the pin was down in the first tier.
That put the pressure squarely on Bill. We now had two balls on the green – in net two because we were both getting strokes. His partner, while also lying net two, was in trouble in the greenside bunker. Bill, playing without the benefit of a stroke on this hole was still 130 yards out. He rose to the occasion and hit a beautiful shot right at the flag. The ball checked up about 12 feet below the hole.
The pressure was now on Roger to come up with a decent bunker shot. He also executed well with his ball rolling about 10 feet from the hole. Both of our opponents putts were makeable but by no means easy. Now the pressure was back on us to get down in two. I had about a 50 foot putt that I hit real well – it ended up about 3 feet below the whole. Lanny was next with about a 45 footer but with much more of a challenge than I had because he was on the upper tier and was going to have to carefully roll the ball along the ridge and just have it gently fall down toward the hole. He executed perfectly and the ball nestled two feet from the hole.
The pressure now went squarely back to our opponents – and they finally blinked. Bill just missed his birdie put by an inch and tapped in for a five. Roger failed to get his par saving putt down and tapped in for his six. That meant that either Lanny or I needed to make our putts. I calmly drained mine for a net birdie, then Lanny did the same with his, giving us two points and tying the match.
The comeback was great because we did it by playing well not by having our opponents hand the match to us (Bill shot a 39 for his nine and Roger had a 41). We managed the tie because Lanny and I shot two over par for the last four holes which included the two hardest holes on the nine.
Yet as satisfying as the tie was, it should have been a victory. We should have gotten at least one point on the hole that we tied during our comeback. Lanny had a five foot putt for birdie that he and I misread and I missed a three foot putt for par. If either of us makes those putts we win rather than tie.
Still, we’ll take the tie given how futile things looked standing on tie of the sixth hole of the match down six to one of the better teams in the league. The point that we earned managed to move us up one notch in the league standings. We are now in sixth place.
I’ll update all on my surgery later today.
Big Golf Weekend
I’m going to try to defend my Toftrees Cup Senior Club Championship (the Toftrees Cup is our handicapped championship competition) on Saturday and Sunday. Last year I won with a net 5 under, going 68-71 for a 139, and I won by three strokes. It’s a fun time because the competition takes place from the senior tees which we ordinarily never play.
This will also be the first time in a month that I’ve tried to play 18 holes on consecutive days so I’ll be curious about how my knees will hold up. I’ve cut my rounds back to about 1 1/2 a week and its really helped. I played 18 yesterday in a practice round and my knees felt the best they have for a month. I shot an 88 for a net 72 and that’s without making a putt on the front nine so I’m optimistic that I can give my title a good defense.
I think I may pull a Tiger and leave the driver in the bag on most holes. I’ve got a 20 degree Cobra Baffler hybrid that I can hit over 200 yards and I may go with it since the course plays much shorter from the senior tees than it does the normal tees.
As a frame of reference, Our senior tees (5571 yards, rating 68.1, and slope of 129) are about the same as Old Orchard white’s (5731 yards, rating 68.7, and slope of 127). We have five sets of tees and normally I play either the white (6259, 71.4, 133) or the blue tees (6553, 72.3, 135) so you can see there will be a considerable difference from what I typically play (PS – I almost never play the black – 7062, 74.3, 138 – I’ve learned my limits 🙂 ).
I used the hybrid yesterday during my practice round and showed that there’s no par four that I can’t get inside of 150 yards with the it. There is one par five that would be reachable in two with the driver but its a slight dog leg right and it would be easy to hit a driver through the dog leg into the woods so the sensible play would be to not use it there either. That’s the 17th hole so I will keep the driver in the bag in case I come to it on Sunday and need an eagle. 🙂
As usual, I will keep all updated on my results.