Lloyd's Lucky Day

My husband is a golfer. He loves all things golf - except international scandals involving some of the game's very best players. Over the years (he's been golfing since 1998) he has shared his passion with anyone who would listen to him. He wanted to create his own private group of golfers who would almost always be available to play with him. To that end he made sure his sons and sons-in-law all had golf clubs and, with the exception of Quincey who already was a golfer, he taught, coached, and played with them until he never needed to worry about golfing alone.

He tried to teach me too but I just can't seem to get the hang of estimating yardage, judging which club to use where, or hitting the ball. I have accompanied him in the golf cart and have played the occasional 9-hole course with him, but I was so bad that he just considered those nice walks in good company and didn't worry about scores :) .

After having all the sons, and a couple of the daughters/daughters-in-law fans of golf, he then looked to the younger generation and began teaching his grandsons who were old enough to swing a club and one granddaughter who showed an interest, and coached them as well.

Lloyd and Sam

Lloyd and Layla

Then, he had the brilliant idea to have an annual MacKenzie Family Golf Tournament, complete with a very nice trophy onto which were engraved the names of each year's winners. As his friends heard about this tournament, some of them who were good friends of the family also joined in. It was getting a bit out of hand so last year we limited it to family only again, and still managed to field three teams. There were prizes for longest drive, closest to the pin, etc. and everyone contributed something to the participants table so no one went away empty handed, or empty stomached either as we combined the tournament with a family barbeque.

2008 Participants - back row: Art (friend), middle row: Lloyd, SIL Curtis, Cory (friend), Mark (nephew), Darin (friend), Bottom row: SIL Quincey, son Michael

(In other years we've had daughter Emily, SIL Allan, son Rob, DIL Cindy join the family team.)

And then when we discovered Arizona...woo hoo! here was a way for Lloyd to golf year round, instead of just from April to October. It's amazing how many excuses one man can come up with to go to the sunny south! He now has a set of clubs down there permanently and one up here in the north so he doesn't have to transport them across the border everytime he goes down.

So...why did I title this entry 'Lloyd's Lucky Day'? Well, you can imagine how hard it is for him to pass by a golf store and not go in (sort of like me and scrapbooking stores). Yesterday he saw a sale at his favorite golf store - one where he's a member of their Leader Board, whatever that means. The one obscure club that he hadn't added to his collection yet was on sale, so he bought it at a great price...for clubs, that is. Do you realize how expensive golf clubs are?? Never mind - it makes him happy and he can't complain about my scrapbook expenses as long as he's buying golf stuff. Anyway, he also found a box of his favorite golf balls - Bridgestone Tour B330-RX - they go farther and better than others I guess. He took them to the check-out and the manager on duty recognized him (that shows you how often he's there!) and was standing with the cashier. The box of balls wouldn't scan. The manager said "Well, we'll just have to give them to you for free". And he did!

I can't tell you how many times yesterday Lloyd came to me holding two boxes of Bridgestone Tour B330-RX golf balls and said, holding first one box and then the other out, "Box of golf balls - $46.99. Box of golf balls - Free!" It was indeed his lucky day!