Tee Times, SIM Cards and the AELTC
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2008
1
3
29
Trip End
Jul 02, 2008
Starkville,
Mississippi,
United States
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The SIM cards, according to William (Viv's brother) are in Vegas city limits as of tonight. The other part of that process was securing the unlock code for my Motorola V3 Razr (expect this to be replaced by a new IPhone 3G in July, btw) from AT&T. That took a few days - shocker. I called them Monday and they said they couldn't retrieve the code through their system and that Motorola would have to send it. I said, please do so by Monday(since I'm leaving then). Amazingly, the code popped into my gmail account this afternoon, so all is good on that front
SIM city
.As for my coveted tee time on the Old Course at St. Andrews - well, let's just say I'll have to work hard for that when I arrive in Scotland. That comes a no surprise, though - I knew going into this trip that playing the course where the game of golf was born was going to be a tough ticket. When we learned of the trip in January, all advance bookings were already filled. That left two options - the daily lottery and walking on as a single. I've learned over the course of the last few months that the latter may actually be the best play.
That's right - I may actually be able to walkon to the most historic course in the world, play 18 in four hours with a caddie guiding me all the way, and walk over the famous Swilcan Bridge on the 18th and pose like Jack Nicklaus during his last round there in 2005. To do this, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club suggests that "the most common way for a single to get on the Old Course is by going to the starter as early as possible in the morning." Reading the web, I've learned that really means arriving at the hallowed grounds around 5:30 a.m. (no big deal, though - the sun rises around 4:30 in Scotland in June).
Sometimes we do crazy things to create the best experiences in life
Just heavenly...the Old Course
. For me, this would be one of those times. I am prepared to make the sacrifice just to give myself a chance to play The Old Course at St. Andrews. I feel confident it will happen. Let's hope sometime between June 24-26 I'm blogging about my day on the links.Gaining us access to the AELTC (that's the All England Lawn and Tennis Club for you yanks) when we arrive in London in two weeks is currently laying firmly on the shoulders of Andy Jackson, head tennis coach at Gator Junior College. I'll dispense with who Andy is because I think most of you know him and my longtime friendship with him, which dates back to his stellar career at MSU. He's using his keen abilities and wordly connections to try and not only get us into the Championships Wimbledon, but also grant us access to famed Centre Court. And if that weren't enough, I've also requested that we be able to see world #1 Roger Federer play on said court. Now that I think about, I forgot to ask him about a photo op with the Queen herself...better call him tomorrow.
So everyone pray for Andy...we need him to take his focus away from recruiting future chompers to Gainesville for a few minutes in the next couple weeks. If he doesn't deliver, not a big deal...just means more camping out early in the UK, something I'll likely be very experienced with following St. Andrews.
