Like most everybody else, I have only the vaguest of notions of what Hell is like. The whole fire and brimstone thing never actually clicked with me – hey, if it’s warm it can’t be all bad. No, my vision of Hell involves mostly images of cold and dark. And reality television. I’m guessing that Keeping Up With The Kardashians is broadcast 24/7 there.

The reason I bring this up is because the end result of my recent trip to the Bob Hope Classic is a guaranteed reservation in Hades. You see, I snuck a Flip Videocam into a PGA Tour event. And used it. Here is the damning evidence…

To enjoy golf in January in the desert, you have to acquire a taste for sunshine, zero humidity and temperatures in the upper 70’s. It’s not too bad, if you like that sort of thing. As luck would have it, I do – but that was not the motivating factor in including the Classic on the “It’s Game Time Somewhere” Tour schedule. I was actually there to see a celebrity.
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…Continued from the previous post.

Most casual fans of bowling know that rolling three strikes in a row is called a Turkey. It is now my pleasure to add to that body of knowledge by sharing with you that four strikes in a row is called a Hambone.

Why? I don’t know – nor did anyone sitting near me at the World Series of Bowling. But each time a bowler recorded a fourth consecutive strike, the “Hambone” signs and cheers invariably went up in the bleachers.

Your curiosity now piqued, you may ask “What is five strikes in a row called?” Simple – “Five strikes in a row.” Or in my case, “Impossible.”

My trip to Las Vegas for this event was timed to miss all of the qualifying play that had been going on for almost two weeks at the South Point Resort’s Bowling Center. In each of the five Championships that make up the WSOB, bowlers had been progressively keggling through 12 games of medal play to narrow the field to 16, and then 9 match play games to finalize seeding.

I skipped all that and went right to the dessert – the Championship Finals, which featured the five bowlers who had accumulated the most points during that 21 game grind. And I took two helpings of the good stuff, plunking down $20 each to be part of the studio audience for the taping of the Viper and the Chameleon Championships.

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It’s a funny thing about Las Vegas – the city seems to be suffering through a chronic and debilitating shortage of chairs.

If you don’t believe me, try this simple experiment on your own: Enter any Vegas casino and sit down – but not in any of the 12,594 seats at which doing so requires placing a bet or ordering food and drink. See what I mean? Spooky, huh?

So it was that I recently found myself luxuriating in the comfort of a cement bench at the taxi stand outside of South Point Resort Casino, waiting for the gates to open for the PBA World Series of Bowling. It was either that or idle away the time at the slots. Since the Demon Deacon Fantasy Football League reminds me each year that I am the world’s least talented gambler, the choice was an easy one.
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…Continued from the previous post.

Gold Medal Match at SoCal Showdown: Jacob Wukie vs. Jake Kaminski

It’s pretty easy to see how archery came into existence as a sport.

Long, long ago, in a time that predates even ESPN, people had to eat. They noticed that animals that just might fill that express need seemed to be running by with regularity. Somebody decided to take a curved tree limb, stretch some twine between its ends and use it to propel pointy sticks at these animals.

Poof. Instant supper. After which they invented beer to wash it down.

Naturally there emerged some down time between animals running by, so the enterprising among these folks began to proactively venture out after them. They decided to call it hunting. Somewhere in there green tights and pointy leather hats came into vogue, but that’s a different story.

Here’s the point. In every group of people there’s inevitably somebody who says something like “I bet I can shoot my pointy stick closer to the middle of that tree over there than you can.” In this particular case, that guy’s name was Archie.

I’m really, really sorry, but you have to admit it – that joke was just sitting there for somebody to use.
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There are perfect days and then there are perfect days. And one notch ahead of that was the day that I found myself at the ARCO Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, CA to witness the USA Archery SoCal Showdown tournament.

It was amazing to consider that I had been at another Olympic training facility just two weeks prior to that, and the environment couldn’t have been any more different. At the Bethesda Center of Excellence a drizzly morning and the mist rising from steam-heated water gushing down the whitewater river course combined to provide an almost surreal backdrop to the Canoe/Kayak Nationals.

At Chula Vista, it was brilliantly sunny and warm, with literally not a cloud in the sky. A very slight cooling breeze topped off the kind of day that needed no studio retouching to go directly to a Chamber of Commerce highlight reel.
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