“You need to have great hands because your technique is sh*t!” Michael Campbell said, grinning.
Four hours in our round together, 2005 We open Champ had seen enough of my weak mechanics to wonder that I managed to get even shots in the air. He would also know me well enough to realize that I could get friendly mockery.
Indeed, he would make me at paying me all day, and because the return is a fair game, I would fall back on some occasions, as when I Deadpan asked the Kiwi star where he greeted in Australia.
That’s how it goes.
One of the great pleasures of this game is giving your game partner a rash of grief – the better if that partner happens to be a former champion.
Such opportunities do not come every day. Nor events like events Punta Mita winning.
If you are even familiar with traditional pro-am, you know how those tours tend to work: Snap a photo in the first TeE with your pro-which may or may not engage with you throughout your round-tighten your hands to 18 before the ways are split.
Look: Tiger Stories, a bucket list of Par-3 & Boo Weekley Laugh | Punta Mita Golf Adventure
Wham, bam, thank you, man. A purely transactional issue.
But Punta Mita Invitational is something else. Held in January at MitaA Peninsula rich in resorts, in the form of a spear on the Pacific coast of Mexico, less than an hour north of Puerta Vallarta, the invitation is an annual golf and entertainment smorgasbord that shatters the official pro-am conventions. During three days, amateur participants play with a different pro each day, linking it to two Jack Nicklaus signature courses in a competition that is as serious as you want to do.
Good times do not end when shocks fall to 18 years of age. After the golf, everyone hangs together on cocktails and sitting dinners. You get to know the best. They know you. You make friends and memories.
At a time when Campbell and I met in the first first, we would have already broken the bread together the night before. I would meet his wife. I would learn about the life he has made in Spain, where he runs a respected golf academy.
On the second day of the event, golf became a genuine hit hit when I became a partner with Boo Weekley – Camo in his head, the beer can in his hand – who lived up to his reputation as the most friendly man in the game.
For all the scams around, Weekley got it well. But he was not as much as my pro the third day, Jonathan Byrd, who lived up to his surname by throwing nine birds in 18 holes, a strong performance that failed to compensate for his amateur partners. I think we’ve finished in a tie for the last time.
But this is also the point of Punta Mita Invitational. Profit is largely supported by the point. I can continue. But Video below Worth 1,000 words. And it’s worth looking at. Meanwhile, to learn more about Punta Mita Invitational, click here.
