Deathmarch 2014 - A Shaun Odyssey

DEATHMARCH 2014 - A Shaun Odyssey

Past and Preparations

Each year a group of Mechanical Engineers from around the region gather for a golf tournament they affectionately call the "Deathmarch". They call it that because its 36 holes of golf in one day, usually in searing heat, and the participants consume large amounts of alcohol. Fortunately, unlike the original Deathmarch (held sometime in the early 2000's) the modern version permits participants to use golf carts, but it is still pretty tiring. Along with a decent entry fee, there are thousands of dollars of prizes up for grabs in a traditional Scramble format. In Scramble Golf players compete in teams for the overall lowest score with individual prizes being awarded for getting closest to the pin on select Par 3s and the Longest Drive on some Par 4s and 5s.

I was invited to compete in the 2013 Deathmarch at the last minute when a participant withdrew. I paid no fee and showed up with a injured thumb already tired from having to wake up at 4 am. I played terribly in the morning round, but came alive in the afternoon to propel my team to victory with beastly drives, some well timed approach shots, and uncharacteristically good putting. Our winning came as a major shock to the field, there were a few eyebrows raised at our scorecard, and I knew that I would have a target on my back the next year. With this in mind I began my preparations for the death march even before Law School ended.

I created a practice plan meant to increase my chances of success. I strategically purchased many UW driving range punch cards so as to take advantage of my low student rates and began hitting a bucket of balls about 4 times per week. Along with my trustee driving range partners, Brady Bear and Liu Murder, I changed my grip and swing path to reflect my less flexible, chubby law school body. My distance decreased, but I salvaged some accuracy that had been lost over the winter. I also started working out again and made a three week push to eat healthier to try and recover some power. Still I was worried, if I was to be competitive I would need a little luck. Fortunately I'm the luckiest person alive, so I was supremely confident, as always.

My scheming and plans were almost all for not when, aided by three nights of insane law school partying, a virus weakened me. It was the weekend before an event called the Deathmarch, and I felt like I was already marching towards death. I couldn't sleep, couldn't breathe right, and couldn't drink to assuage my anguish at the awful ending to the USA vs. Portugal soccer match. The night before the golf tournament I carefully polished my clubs, cleaned the grooves, and packed my bag for a fight. I carried with me 35 balls (with great power comes the ability to hit it 150 yards into the woods haha), a Sand Wedge through a 3-Iron, my trustee Rocketballz Driver, and my 3-wood. To be honest the only reason I carry my 3-wood is because it has a UW head cover on it, which is baller as F*ck. (Sidenote, more than half of the death march participants are cougars, and some of the rest are Ducks! YUCK!)

So it Begins...

I arose at 3:45am on the morning of the Deathmarch. With the event being held in Cle Elum on the east side of the mountains, I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get there. I had tried to go to sleep at 8pm the night before but was unable to fall asleep until 1am, you can imagine how sick and tired I felt as I dragged myself to the shower! Most of my competitors had arrived the day before and had stayed at the Suncadia resort, so they were well rested. My morning routine took longer than anticipated thanks to the anemic power of my microwave and the massive size of my healthy turkey meatballs so it was 4:47am before I left my house. I was already 17 minutes behind schedule! Google thought the trip would take an hour and forty minutes, but Google has clearly never ridden with me going over mountains. As I'm sure JohnDavid, Niki, or DBJ can attest to, nobody passes me. ever. I made the trip in an hour and five minutes, including a five minute detour when I overshot my exit and ended up in some little town without a traffic light. Lets just say I drove my little brother's Ford Explorer like a rented mule. I even managed to get a decent picture at the top of Snoqualmie Pass. 

Arriving at the course before the 6am check in time, I went straight to the practice range. While the old mechanical engineer dudes were shooting the shit, I went into intimidator mode (RIP Dale Earnhardt senior) and pulled out the Big Dog (my driver). I smacked some good drives, which was worrisome because everyone knows if you hit well at the range you'll do shitty on the course. After I had the attention of the old guys, I put the driver away and went through my iron progression. Still good shots, no bueno! Thoroughly disgusted I decided to hit the practice green and try some putting. Putting and chipping is known as the short game, and it is decidedly my weakness and the weakness of mediocre golfers everywhere. The greens were quick, but the morning dew was definitely slowing them down a little. My putting inconsistent, I went to check in with Norm, my best friend's dad and tournament setter-upper. Norm is a very level-headed fair man. He was my coach in little league baseball and he expects folks to handle their shit like he handles his. Norm directed me to my golf cart for the morning round, and I put my clubs on the bag of one that listed my name and the name of my friend Austin. I then went to play my eddie haskell style role with Austin's little brother, Ryan. Ryan is a huge ginger kid with a heart of gold who is really fun to joke around with. His nickname is Big Bad Ryan Brown, and I'm about the only person he regularly interacts with who is substantially larger than him. Ryan is also my little bro's best friend. As I'm getting in Ryan's head before the tourney, one of my playing partners, Robert, swipes Austin's spot on the back of our golf cart. He is a big force in the mechanical engineering world and he did the mech work on Husky Stadium. I wanted to ride with Austin so I moved my gear to the other cart in our foursome and switched the name tags on the carts. Little did I know the trouble that would cause!

When the fourth member of our foursome arrived with his gear he naturally put in on Robert's cart, where my gear used to be. Well, long story short it turns out that this guy is pretty frickin annoying, which is why Robert didn't want to golf with him. Robert came up to me and was alleging that the fourth partner had switched my gear out and the name rage as part of some conspiracy. I learned long ago that its best not to get involved with other peoples problems with other people, so I just kept my mouth shut and let Robert believe what he wanted to believe. Was it wrong? Maybe, but I rarely get to see my buddy with bar prep and law school, and I really wanted to ride with him. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, even though it meant we had to deal with a passive aggressive Robert the whole round. 

First Round

The First Round began at Prospector Golf Course, a Seven thousand plus long course with water and sand traps a-plenty. I sucked. I really golfed awful. I parred the first hole with a great putt and the rest of the round was mostly crappy. I couldn't drive, I uncharacteristically couldn't hit my irons, and my chipping was a bajillion times worse than usual, which is really saying something. To put it in perspective I was pretty much like the movie Gigli with ben affleck. Just awful.

I did take a pretty picture though!

I shot a 106, which is probably about 16 shots worse than average. Thats all I have to say about Round 1. 

Second Round. MoneyBall.

See the thing about the Deathmarch is that the first round doesn't mean shit, except to seed you for the second round. Everyone tries their best for pride, but the second round is the money round. By this time everyone is a little tired and only the strong will endure for the whole round. My 106 meant that I was a low C player. AKA I was in about the 25th percentile of golfers in the morning round. The Deathmarch spreadsheet sorted me into a team with the number one golfer from the morning and a golfer who had outperformed in the morning round. We were a threesome in a competition of foursomes. My A-golfer was a mid sixties Boeing employee who pitched for UW Baseball back in the 70's and was due for a total knee replacement within a week. Translation - damn. He was ill suited for the Deathmarch and his knee was killing him. His opening round score was slightly better than his usual, but his second round play was on par with my opening round. Now, when your A player struggles that bad and you only have a three man team, normally thats it. You might as well pack it in because you won't even be sniffing the money. But as always, greatness awaited. Our B player was a mid 50's ex advertising tycoon who had retired after selling his company at age 45. He was nerdy and talkative and was great fun to play with. To his credit, his second round was one of consistent destiny. 

We were the first group off the tee at Rope Rider, a new course that measured close to 7,300 yards in length. If you didn't use driver on this course you were behind the 8-ball. I opened with a 325 drive over some weak-assed sand traps that were supposed to stop people from doing what I just did. We had 160 yards left into a what had been a 500 yard par 5. I saw excitement build in my teammates eyes as they realized that I was not an ordinary C player. I was a C-player who can actually hit a golf ball. We didn't hit a great approach shot but were putting for eagle from distance. We finished with a birdie on the hole, -1 for the tourney with 17 holes to play. We parred out the next 6 holes, until we bogeyed the 8th hole after missing a tricky little 4 foot par putt. DAMN! When I won in 2013 we had birdied 5 of the first 6 holes and were 6 under by the turn. This scramble was not going according to plan. We parred #9 to make the turn at even par. 

One thing about me, I hate to lose, I hate it more than I love winning. Losing is despicable and distasteful. I also love a good comeback story, and so I upped my game. I really started pounding the ball, turning 425 yard par 4s into Pitching Wedge approach shots and shorter par fours into chipping eagle opportunities. As if on cue, the weather turned from that beautiful sunny sky that you saw earlier to a dark and cloudy sky. The wind picked up to 20 mph gusts, and it started to sprinkle. The weather gods were as angry as I was. We birdied #11, #12, and #13. On number 15, a 525 yard par 5 into the teeth of the wind we had a problem. only one of our drives found the fairway and it was short, maybe 180 yards at most. We faced a second shot into a narrow landing area while fighting a stiff wind. We needed to give ourselves a chance to get up for par so we needed distance. With my partners' shots errant into the woods, I stepped up to my ball. In Tin Cup, the greatest golf movie not called Happy Gilmore ever made, A drunk but brilliant ball striker played by Kevin Costner says, "When a defining moment comes along, either you define the moment or you let the moment define you". I believe in Kevin Costner and I believe in defining the moment. So I put away my 6-iron and pulled out my 5-iron, which I had not been hitting particularly well. I swung and hit the 5-iron 200 yards into a driving wind, putting it in a 10 yard wide landing zone with a clear view of the green between two deep and guarding bunkers. We hit our approach shot to 16 feet, and my partner made a bending putt for a birdie. We were now 4 under with 3 holes to play. The toughest 3 holes on the course however. 

Next came a 160 yard par 3. We duffed all of our tee shots but one and ended up 35 feet away from the hole. We had a reasonably straight putt, but try to hit a 4 inch hole 35 feet away over grass while swinging a metal pole. Its not easy. My partners' putts whizzed by, confirming the straightness of the putt I faced. I spent a good while lining up my putt, sighting down my sharpie aiming-line from 15 feet back to get a good read. I drew back on the putter and let loose a putt from the gods, it tracked all the way, sharpie line never wavering, and dropped into the hole. We had gone to 5 under with two holes left to play. Most importantly, we now believed that it was our destiny to win. The next hole was another lengthy par 4. We got a good drive from our B player, hit good approach shots and drained an 8 foot putt to move to 6 under par. At number 18 we scrambled to get up and down for par, preserving our -6 score. 

Sitting in the club house enjoying a cold Eastern Washington Microbrew, we awaited the other team's scores. Would they best us? could our 6 under hold up in difficult weather conditions? Steadily groups came in, 5 under, 4 under, plus 2, even, nobody was touching our 6-under. There was a report that there was a 7 under out on the course however. We ordered more beer and waited...

... The group walked in, their faces betraying no emotion. They handed their card to Norm who said, "4 under, not bad guys". They had bogeyed where we had birdied in those final 4 holes. The championship secured, we dove upon plates of appetizers while listening to the trials of teams we had just defeated. Two other teams had achieved a 5 under, and two a 4 under. For the second straight year I had emerged victorious from the Deathmarch. 

Homeward Bound, without the cute animals.

I drove home over snoqualmie pass, winnings in tow. All in all I had lost about $140, but it was all worth it to win the Deathmarch and escape Bar prep for a day. I didn't break any land speed records on the way home however, because the pass was completely blocked for rock blasting. I took this picture as I waited for it to open.

Thats six miles of backed up cars. Brutal. As I finally arrived home at 10:30pm I fell asleep, snug in my bed with visions of future Deathmarch Domination dancing in my head. The End.

P.S. If you are a slow driver get the F out of the left lane. Seriously.

P.P.S. I saw Russell Wilson and Jay Buhner while eating appetizers. Jay Buhner is a god.