You... Da'.... MAN !!!

Now, being that the title of the blog implies I am primarily a "stage mother" you know I don't talk that much about Firstborn.

It's just I don't hang with him and hubby so much. Because as much as they love me, and we are a family, I have another love to compete with.

GOLF.

It's not a game, it's a 24 hour 8 day a week obsession with them.

I can only think of 3 conditions under which they don't play:

1) They are deathly ill
2) A herd of rabid deer are on the loose trampling the tee boxes
3) There's an active tornado present on the greens

The golf channel stays on the tv almost every minute they are present in our house.
Golf news, golf reality shows, golf tournaments, golf instruction, golf inventions, golf info-mercials. You name it about golf, it's been watched at our house. Including the 4,568 commentaries and analyses of everything from what Tiger Woods brushes his teeth with to every angle of every golf shot he's ever taken....

I have washed and dryed thousands of golf balls, ball markers,golf gloves, and tees in the laundry by accident.

We even have a special room set up in the basement where a net hangs with a mattress behind it so they can drive golf balls morning-noon-night. It's not uncommon every night before bed for either Firstborn or hubby to run down and drive 50 or so balls for practice. I have to vacuum constantly because they use that green indoor/outdoor carpeting in there, and the little bits of it get all OVER the house. It's worse than cat hair. It gets in the carpet, in the animal's fur, in the laundry... nothing like throwing on a pair of underwear on with some of THAT stuff stuck to it in a strategic area (TMI, I know....)

Every bathroom has a golf magazine for one's reading pleasure available.

I DO draw the line at decorating the house with anything golf. I think the caps,gloves,bags,balls,markers,head covers,golf shoes, etc laying all over the place is decoration enough.

Giz and I go to pageants for a desperate reprieve from the saturation of the sport in our lives.

And after 7 years of lessons, threats to quit, scraping up weekly greens fees, gnashing of teeth over lost or broken equipment, etc.

Today was the crowning moment of all the effort.

Firstborn is on the middle school golf team, and they have a pretty strong group this year. Firstborn's not always the lowest score, but he's usually the lowest, and he's very consistent. There are two other boys who push him some, who are strong players but not as consistent (they will beat Firstborn by a point or two, then lose by many points - they are good but very inconsistent.) Overall they are really strong players for their ages and they have a lot of enthusiasm for the sport.

Tuesday they played a par 3 course (par 27), and Firstborn came in behind the other two strong players on their team by a couple of points (I think they shot a 34,35,36 respectively) and they beat the other two schools they were playing by 16 points. They play 6 players in competition and the scores are totaled to see who has the overall lowest score. They were psyched!!!

Today they played their first regulation course, playing 9 holes only. Par 36.

Firstborn shot a 37.

For the non-golf person, that's pretty darn good for an eigth grader.

No other player from either his team or any of the other schools even came close. Next highest overall score was a 47.

And Firstborn's team STILL won by 16 points. He pretty much put the BOO in the BOO-YAH today. And when I picked him up he practically glowed.

The coach was pretty jacked about it too... (I think he even had to nip a situation because one of the other school's coaches was concerned that Firstborn was playing as a second place seed and not a first - I'm not sure why this would matter, but these guys take it all VERY seriously.)

I let Firstborn pick where to go out for dinner afterwards to celebrate, and I don't think I've ever heard him recount the day's events in that many ways ever before.

I am so proud of him in his "moment of glory."

Firstborn was DA' MAN.