Saturday, June 21, 2008

Wegmans LPGA Saturday Pairings

They're going off the first tee in twosomes for the 3rd round of the Wegmans LPGA today.

There are some nice pairings because of the contrasting styles of player involved, like Maria Hjorth and Annika Sorenstam (7:36 am), Na On Min and Laura Davies (8:16 am), Sophie Gustafson and Jane Park (8:24 am), and Ya Ni Tseng and Natalie Gulbis (11:12 am). There are some neat cross-generational pairings, like Jennifer Rosales and Song-Hee Kim (6:56 am), Sherri Steinhauer and Mi Hyun Kim (8:40 am), Hee-Won Han and Shanshan Feng (8:56 am), and Seon Hwa Lee and Janice Moodie (9:28 am). And then there are some just plain compelling ones, like Michelle Wie and Sandra Gal (10:24 am), Catriona Matthew and Lorena Ochoa (10:40 am), Jeong Jang and Candie Kung (11:28 am), Christina Kim and Cristie Kerr (11:44 am), and of course Suzann Pettersen and Morgan Pressel (12:00 pm). But there's only 1 I'd even consider following were I to attend the tournament today: Inbee Park and Ai Miyazato at 11:52 am.

That subjunctive is not as hypothetical as it usually is for me. Pittsford is an hour east of Buffalo off the NYS Thruway (exit 46, to be precise) and we'll already be in north Buffalo at the UB campus for the last session of onechan's Saturday nihongo yochien. We could eat lunch at the Wegmans as we usually do around noonish, pick up some tickets at the store, drive the hour or so it would take to get to south Rochester, park at Monroe Community College or Xerox (it's closer to the course), take the shuttle bus right to Locust Hill, and get to the 18th green area by 3ish. If my friends at U of R are willing to bring their 2-year-old daughter to hang out with imoto in the fan areas, then onechan, Alter Ego, and I could backtrack to Ai-chan's group and get a good hour or more of her and Inbee Park's rounds in. If not, I could take onechan myself out there. At the very least, I have to call Alter Ego 1st thing in the morning to see if this is possible--and if we could crash at their place that night. And I'd better check with my uncle in Syracuse, as well, to see if he wants to join in on the fun.

I wouldn't be considering this if Ai-chan weren't in contention. But onechan just turned 4 and a half and imoto is 2.

This is do-able, right? Please tell the Full Metal Archivist what you think, because she has veto power.

The other option is to have the ladies stay with the FMA's grad school friend in north Buffalo while I'm off to south Buffalo and then back after the tournament ends. But that ruins 2 fantasies: (a) letting onechan see her favorite golfers (well, Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis, at least) in person, and (b) getting the FMA to meet Ai-chan. Given my track record with realizing Japanese fantasies, though, perhaps these are better left, uh, fantastic.

I'll be checking comments till noon. Advise away!

[Update 1 (9:25 am): Looks like we're going. My uncle and niece in Syracuse are huge Morgan Pressel fans, so they'll be going there earlier and following her around. Still waiting to see if the Alter Ego family can make it....]

[Update 2 (11:08 am): Looks like we'll be doing dinner with the Alter Ego family.]

4 comments:

spyder said...

It seems quite do-able, full weather permitting. I personally think onechan, at the age of four, will benefit hugely from seeing her favorites close up and in person. It can't help but be inspiring. I say go for it!!!

The Constructivist said...

Hoping I can get onechan out on the course for a bit, although we might have to hunt down Creamer and Gulbis for autographs 1st.

Anonymous said...

sorry I missed out on all the fun - and I assume you ended up bowing to the wifely pressure.

Does this mean you get to head out for Sunday's final round ?

ok - how about a translation - "onechan's Saturday nihongo yochien" ?

The Constructivist said...

Translation: my older daughter's Saturday pre-school Japanese class.

Check the Saturday post--we went!