Dispatches

May 7, 2012, Toronto – Wow! What a busy couple of days. Spent the day on the golf course Friday at the Fire Fighting in Canada  Provincial
Open. I wasn’t actually golfing, but rather sitting at the $10,000
hole-in-one challenge on the 14th hole with assistant editor Olivia
D’Orazio.

Apparently, someone felt we were best suited to that job as it required no swinging of golf clubs or wayward golf balls, mind you, we did see our share of that by the golfers . . . just sayin’.

FFIC columinst and blogger Jennifer Mabee and FFIC and Canadian Firefighter and EMS assistant editor Olivia D'Orazio  enjoying the weather at the 2012 FFIC Provincial Open after completing a successful round of negotiations for a stake in the $10,000 hole-in-one challenge prize money. Photo by Laura King

The day started out with beautiful weather (a huge improvement over last year I’m told) and Olivia and I setting ourselves up at the 14th hole with a golf cart, two lawn chairs and two bags of chocolate bars (the consolation prize for not getting the $10,000 hole in one.)

Neither one of us knew much about golf, Olivia having never golfed before, and my only experience consisting of a handful of times in Port Severn, which is far from the course in Toronto, I might add. While waiting for the first group to arrive, we contemplated the possible uses of the green box (we noticed later it had a picture of a broken tee on the side),a larger white box, and the white pieces of wood that all sat on the . . . what’s it called? The place where you tee off? Hmmm, I need to phone a friend here. Anyway, I’m sure you all know what I’m referring to.

When the first group came through, we were asked something about the distance . . . or maybe it was drive. Anyway, Olivia and I just looked at each other. Fortunately, someone else in the group spoke up and called out a number. Hmmm, we thought. We should probably find out what they are talking about.

By the time the next couple of groups came through, and asked the same question, we caught on to the number that kept being thrown out. By the time the fourth or fifth group came through, we looked like total pros when we could confidently say, “126”, when asked the distance, or drive, or whatever it was they were asking about. (I’m sure it will be explained to me repeatedly following the posting of this blog.) The important thing is, we had an answer and we looked . . . well, not so clueless. (Don’t get me wrong. I'm not calling Olivia clueless by any means. I need no help looking clueless I do just fine on my own. She was just an innocent bystander.)

As the day progressed, we were offered various incentives to take a split if someone should get the hole in one, (to which Olivia always bartered for an 80/20 split in her favour!) and even to take the shot on behalf of a few golfers. We declined the offer to take the shot, advising that it wouldn’t be pretty. However, I must say, there were times when I think we could’ve done better. There were shots into the trees, into the water, into the grass beside the tee [editor’s note: Jen originally said beside the tee off – the word off has been edited out  . . . ] There were chunks of grass [editor’s note: divots] flying all over the place. I really should have taken the shot; they wouldn’t have been any worse off.

All in all, it was a great day. We had beautiful weather; I met lots of new people (out of the first 30, I think I remembered one. Name tags would’ve been very helpful) and even saw a few familiar faces too.

I’m not actually sure who won, because I had a drink after we came off the course and I’d just like to say that for the record that 1) I do not drink often. 2) it had seven per cent alcohol and, 3) I hadn’t eaten much, which resulted in me feeling like I’d had way more than one drink. I was giggling and tee hee-ing and messing up my words, so needless to say, we decided to head out before I did something embarrassing (and by that I mean like trip over something or walk into a glass door, I did not mean like dancing-on-a-table-kind-of-embarrassing . . . saving that kind of fun for later!).