Nelson Weekend, Day 1

Amazingly, all of the boys made it to Dallas despite ridiculous storms on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Shades and Shane made it in Wednesday night, with Excal joining the crew on Thursday. We spent the morning and early part of the afternoon at the Byron Nelson on Thursday, most of which was spent watching Shades' friend and badges provider, Tommy "Two Gloves" Gainey. Although the Four Seasons course was an absolute mess/disaster last year, the $10 million that they put into it over the last 12 months has made it pristine. If the Tour players gripe about these conditions, I may have to stop watching golf.

Speaking of mess/disaster, we played 18 in the afternoon... and it wasn't pretty. Lots and lots of crooked letters. Excal told me that he had not played in 4 months... never a good thing. We set up a little match pitting me and Shane against Shades and Excal... and it was never close. The match was match-play format (i.e., no carry overs), total combined score per team per hole. We won the first 3 holes and never looked back, eventually putting Team Excal down 6 and 4. The individual scores were pretty ugly... I had 78, Jeff was in at 91, Shane was in at 92 and Excal put up a 97. We were playing in 30 mph winds, which was tough... but still. Yikes. Anyway, thanks for dinner guys!

We have 36 holes planned for today. Several matches going on today... Jeff and I will play for our trophy that we've passed back and forth for the last 10 years. Jeff is also taking on Shane (giving him 6 strokes) and Joel (giving him 10). I'm going to propose another team bet with me taking Joel... we agreed to let him move up to the white tees today because he was reallllly struggling from the men's tees yesterday (we didn't even play the tips). I'm expecting a big come back performance from the big Canadian.

I'm taking the camera out with us today, so tune in for some photos/b.s. tomorrow.