Chapter 42

On the trip, I read about a sailor who rounded Cape Horn on a sailing ship. They went to California to trade for cattle hides and also visited the Sandwich Islands; it took two years and was extremely hard.

I was really impressed with his description of icebergs and the hard life of the common sailor. I was glad that when I had the measles they didn’t ship me off to sea.

Our bus drove around behind the stadium; there was a row of fifteen steel Quonset hut buildings sitting there. This is where we were staying. I learned this was called “Tin Pan Alley” for the steel buildings.

When it rained or hailed it must be noisy. They had been put up in 1946 to house men returning from the war. Students had in the last two years been moved to the two new residence halls.

Bowling Green or BGSU as it was known had done a credible job setting the buildings up for us. They had been subdivided into rooms for two. There was a central lounge and a large shower and bathroom facility.

Very much like a dorm setup would be. I had been preassigned hut four, room 5. Tim and I were to share a room, John and Gary in another. Coach would be staying with our bus driver.

It didn’t take us long to move our gear including clubs to our rooms. After that, we all met in the lounge and went as a group to one of the school cafeterias. We said hello to players from Urbana, Kenton, and Celina. We didn’t see the group from Marysville, but someone said they were here.

After dinner, we were split into smaller groups and given a tour of the campus. While going through the library I got interested in the books and got separated from our group. I continued to browse until an attractive young lady named Diane asked me to reach for a book that was on a high shelf. We started talking and soon I had joined her at a study table.

We no sooner sat down than our tour guide showed up. The rest of the tour was with him. He started giving me grief about keeping up with the tour group and that high school kids were pain at best.

At this point, Diane asked, “You are in High School?”

“Yes, I am a freshman,” I replied.

She blushed as deep of red as I have ever seen. She also couldn’t get out of that library fast enough. I had done nothing, but it made my reputation with the guys on the tour. From the way they talked in the lounge back at Tin Pan Alley I was the pickup artist of all time. I wondered what price I would pay for this.

We were all up and ready to go by seven in the morning. Breakfast was in the cafeteria. While eating I heard that a team had got in trouble. They had left Tin Pan Alley after lights out and went downtown and tried to buy beer. The Police brought them back. The word was they were on their way back to Marysville right now. They were definitely out of the tournament.

We were loaded on the bus and taken to Stone Ridge where we spent from eight o’clock to ten o’clock walking the course. At ten the first practice round started, our tee time wasn’t until two o’clock as we had a bad draw for tee times. We would have to hustle to get a round in before dark.

This was the first time I had walked a course before playing. It was very interesting. I was making notes in my book like crazy. From the course map, I had planned an ideal golf round for my shots. Now I got to see what lies I would have if I hit those shots. Of particular note was the fourteenth hole.

It is a par five whose green is guarded by my friends the sand traps. If I hit one of my longer drives it could roll into a trap on my right which curved out in front of the green. I decided unless my score was desperate to lay up with a three wood at about two hundred yards.

We finished up and moved onto the driving range where we warmed up for a while, then to the putting green. Next, we went into the clubhouse for lunch. This clubhouse was so much nicer than the Bellefontaine clubhouse.

I wondered what the Ohio State clubhouse would be like if I made it that far. We stopped by the pro shop where I picked up some tees which had Stone Ridge printed on them. I decided to start a collection right then and there.