My son-in-law is off to his next Coast Guard duty station where he will settle in and then board a boat, which will be home, for about three months.

His daughter and bride will soon follow, but for now, he is going it alone.

He is one of my golfing buddies.

Prior to his departure, we toured the first nine at Bayou Din Golf Club.

It was 7 a.m. when we teed off. It was early but we wanted to beat the heat.  It was a rough start.  

The course was well manicured, the fairways were freshly mown and the greens were dewy but responsive.

If only the golf swing was on.  

He is left-handed and I am right-handed.  We are both masters of the slice. Our balls went in opposite directions.

Every golf course I have played has a hole about 175 yards long, par 3 with a big water hole between the tee box and the green.  Bayou Din’s is number 7.

(If you tee off from the AARP marker it is only about 145 yards.)

I teed up at the AARP marker, swung my 6 iron through the ball and watched as it cleared the pond and landed about 30 yards to the right of the edge of the green.

It was an exciting moment.

With my pitching wedge, I advanced the ball about 35 yards where it landed on the green about 15 yards from the hole.  Then I sunk the putt.

It was a rare moment.  Three strokes into the hole on a par three hole.

It doesn’t matter what happened on the rest of the course.  It is why I will go back even though the results of the other holes prove I shouldn’t.

Can you relate?

 

Trump is at it again

 

Scrolling through news apps on your cell phone you likely saw a headline and article about President Donald Trump attempting to by Greenland from Denmark.

Can you buy a country?

If so, why not buy Russia?  The natural resources and landmass are immense.  I am convinced if the Russians converted to a free market structure and let capitalism reign as the economic force they would soon own the United States.

Their natural resources eclipse ours, as I understand it, but they just don’t know how to make it work in their favor.

Be that as it may, and getting back to POTUS and Greenland, it appears he was serious.

So serious, he canceled a call on the leader of Denmark because she wouldn’t sell the landmass.

According to an online column, https://world.wng.org/2019/08/emerging_frontier, published by World magazine, POTUS may have been on to something.

In her report, Mindy Belz declared the island is populated predominantly by native Greenlanders, there is precedent for such a purchase such as when Andrew Johnson purchased Alaska from the Russians in 1867 and Greenland could be a strategic investment related to our security and provision of natural resources.

Belz goes on to say Trump made a serious blunder in his negotiations potentially missing out on an important opportunity.

But alas, it seems once again there may be some validity to his actions in spite of his distasteful communication skills.

 

I was wrong

 

To all those die-hard West Orange-Stark Mustangs fans appalled at my prediction they would lose by a narrow margin to the Nederland Bulldogs last week – I was wrong.

It was a squeaker.  The Bulldogs prevailed by one point last year and lost by one point this year.

The score in the Barrow versus Thompson era is one and one.

Stay tuned.

 

Bobby Tingle is the publisher of The Orange Leader.  You can reach him at bobby.tingle@orangeleader.com.