15th Annual Cabin Classic in Clear Lake, Iowa

 

15th Annual Cabin Classic in Clear Lake, Iowa

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for September 19, 2021

It was a golfing week for the Swank Family.  The family and I played 9 holes on Monday and they roughed me up quite a bit.  Story of my life.

I did get an Eagle, but none of them seemed too impressed.

On Friday night, I drove down to Clear Lake, Iowa to connect with a bunch of my high school buddies for a weekend of fun and debauchery and the 15th Annual Cabin Classic Golf Tournament.

Technically, it's been 16 years since the first Cabin Classic Golf Tournament hosted by our good friend, Jason Alexander.  We couldn't do it last year because of the pandemic, so now we'll always have to have an asterisk next to the tournament title to explain why there's a missing year.  Curse you, Covid, and all the problems you  continue to cause in our lives! 

We played a 4 man best ball tournament and this was my team.  They would have had a really good shot at winning if they didn't have the unfortunate luck of drawing me.  Maybe next year they'll have better luck.

This was the foursome we played against.  They only beat us by 1 stroke, so it wasn't like it was a shellacking or anything.  More like a Vikings game that could been won by a game ending field goal.  Like that will ever happen!

 We played at Ridge Stone Golf Club in Sheffield, Iowa.  It is unique in that on hole #4 lies the remains of the Sheffield Brick & Tile Company.  The old kilns lie in the middle of the fairway and can provide a pretty challenging hazard if you land in them.  No free lies out of the brick oven!

There's also a nice stream that cuts through the course.  I like streams.

 

We spent most of the day golfing.  The other team was pretty humble when they found out their victory was confirmed.  It's a gentleman's game.

 

The weekend also consists of late night poker tournaments.  I'd like to say I had more success here, but sadly it was a weekend of lessons learned from losing.  You'd think at age 51 I'd have had enough of those lessons in life already, but instead I just try to continue to be thankful for the opportunity to learn.  Better luck next year.

I snuck down to the dock in the middle of the night.  I thought the full moon looked beautiful and tried to capture a picture of it with my regular camera, but it just came out as pitch black.  I was ready to give up when I remembered my iPhone is supposed to take better pictures at night.  I was pretty pleased with the result.