Glory's Last Shot

Heading to Minneapolis tomorrow for the 3rd round of the PGA Championship at Hazeltine with Bergman, Jacobi, and Endo. I've been to the '02 PGA, a practice round at the '05 Masters (maybe the greatest day of my life, definitely the most surreal) and the '06 PGA, so I'm officially a seasoned vet at the majors now. In my opinion, golf tournaments are the greatest sporting events to go to- as long as you are willing to hustle, and don't have any problems being on your feet for 10 straight hours, give or take. If you know the course a little bit, use golfing common sense, and keep your head on a swivel (cause that's what you've gotta do when you find yourself in the middle of a vicious cockfight) you can find yourself ridiculously close to the action- unlike other sports, where for the most part, your ticket price determines how close you are.

Mini-story from my first experience at the '02 PGA, which was also at Hazeltine: It was Russell and I, during that magical first summer at Culligan Manor, embarking on a poorly-planned and poorly-executed road trip as only a couple of 19-year-olds can. We stumbled into some Saturday tickets at around 10 pm the night before, threw some clothes and deodorant in a bag and left town at midnight, stopped in Fargo to grab the tickets out of the guy's mailbox (a friend's dad, whom I had never met before) drove to my aunt & uncle's lake cabin around Alexandria, MN to sleep for an hour or two, then woke up and drove the rest the way into Minneapolis, arriving at 6 a.m.

So of course we have no directions; I was in my "I've been to Minneapolis by myself a few times now dude, I totally know where I'm going" phase. Our plan is to drive into Chaska and then wing it from there, figuring there will be a million cars going to the same spot. Sure enough, a steady stream of traffic is going one way, and soon we see signs directing us to a huge field with $10 parking. Russell and I congratulate ourselves on a job well done, get out of the car, walk a couple hundred yards....and find ourselves in the middle of a scene straight out of Role Models. Dudes wearing robes and crowns, brandishing swords and shields; women in boustiers playing instruments; tents and roasting pigs and the whole shebangabang. Unbelievable.


My rants are well documented on how Role Models is the funniest movie of the last couple years, maybe even since Wedding Crashers. It doesn't get enough love, mostly because it got sandwiched between Stepbrothers and The Hangover. But reason #72 why I love it more than most people: I think everything Joe Lo Truglio (pictured above with the beard) says in this movie is hilarious. When they all put their swords in the middle, he drops the "Now let us gingerly touch our tips" line, and Paul Rudd makes his facial expression...our theater was mostly quiet and I was nearly falling out of my chair laughing.


Apparently there was some giant Renaissance festival going on in town that weekend as well. The anticlimactic end to the story is we went to a gas station, got directions, made it to the course in time to get a great spot on the 1st tee, and had a super-fun day watching the PGA Championship. One time I got so close that I could've reached out and punched Tiger's club during his backswing, if I were so inclined. Which I wasn't. Also, we both fell asleep at the wheel multiple times on the drive home that night and somehow managed to not die. The End.