For the forth year in a row, some fellow golfers and I headed off to play our annual golf tournament we call The Amateurs, which is loosely based on The Masters and The Ryder Cup professional golf tournaments. The only difference is that instead of a bunch of pros playing four rounds of golf for over a million bucks on the best golf courses in the world, we are a bunch of hackers playing four rounds in two or three days for a few bucks on some of the best (read cheapest) golf courses in the south. In the past the tournament has been played at the Robert Trent Jones Trail, Callaway Gardens, and Dancing Rabbit. This year The Amateurs was played at the Hot Springs Village.

With some of the worst weather ever experienced for the tournament, we still had our largest group to date with 16 competitors. We played two rounds on Friday, one early on Saturday, had an afternoon at the Derby, and then a final round on Sunday. Highlights from the weekend included playing a couple rounds through hail, fog, rain, lightning & cold, endless handicap discussions, A's integrity being challenged, Peter & Jeff talking too much, Jason and myself talking too little, one long dinner at Coy's, getting lost, Dallas not officially running the tournament and also finding out who is the #1 employer of college graduates each year. Not until the second nine of the final round did short sleeves make an appearance. If it wasn't The Amateurs, none of the participant would of been playing this weekend for sure. But the weather was a great equalizer to most. Those who came out on top included:

• Low Net Total: Dallas (292)
• Low Net Round: Dallas (81 equals 69)
• High Net Total: Jeff (341)
• High Net Round: Jason (104 equals 92)
• Overall MVP - Best Record: Tom Marino (3-0-1)

Golf and fellowship were the two priorities. This year, as in the past, many received more golf than they had hoped as scores soared in to the 100s. Year five next year promises to be a big one, but until then be sure to check out the pics from this year's tournament. Congratulations to Blake and the Men-O-War: JB, Jason, Josh, A, Matt, Tom and myself for pulling out a close victory to take the prize. Also thanks to worthy competitors on The Curse: Coach Kennon, Peter, Dallas, Preston, Tony, Jim, Jeff and William for making the weekend great. When asked to comment on how his team pulled out the victory at The 2007 Amateurs, Coach Bourland commented, "How exactly do you get out of the world's largest gated community?" Coach Vaughan was unavailable for comment. Remember it's never too early to go ahead and start shaping up your game and handicap for next year.

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Commentary on the questioning of A's integrity by A Thompson:
“After playing 36 holes over 12 hours in the pouring down rain and listening to Dallas ignite a controversy over his handicap with glorified stories about his play over the final 18 holes, A got pulled into a laundry room by the two team captains around 11pm to discuss his handicap. At the time, A was interested in four things: beer, eating JB’s leftover pizza, watching Sportscenter and going to bed. Once inside the laundry room, Captain Vaughn of The Curse immediately asked A, ‘As a man of integrity, what is your real handicap?’ Thompson’s initial shock at the question quickly began to heat up into a nuclear explosion about the themes implicit in Captain Vaughn’s tone, when Captain Bourland jumped in and reminded A that Kennon frequently uses this kind of slang phrase when asking for an honest answer. A decided not to attempt a round-house kick on Captain Vaughn’s head and an agreement between the two teams was finalized which included a revised handicap for A.”