Golfing

Every Friday afternoon, a group of ex-pats cut out of work a bit early and hit the links. A month or so ago, I decided to start going too. Here I am hanging out in the cart with Pu, our friend Doug's dog. Yes, Pu comes golfing with us. And while it's true that back home a round of golf can be quite expensive, here 9 holes will cost you a whole $3. That's right...three bucks. A cart is $7 split between 2 people, bringing the grand total to a whopping $7 per person. Wowzers. Because the sun sets around 6:30pm here, we try to move as fast as possible so that we can actually get through 9 full holes. As a result, we play a modified game where we all drop in and hit from the spot of the last best shot. I'm not sure if it's called a Scramble or Best Ball, but because we range in skill from fairly good to god awful crappy, it makes it so that we can all get through 9 holes without it taking 7 hours. We've also recently discovered that the golf course is the site of the biggest stakes gambling on the island. We wondered why many of the Samoans that we saw on the course were playing as if they were in a golf sprint, and now we know it's because the more holes they can get through, the more $ they can bet.

Above you can see LTM teeing up. Notice the box markers...painted coconuts.

Below is a closer shot. Gotta love this place.

The view from the course is absolutely beautiful.



Pu likes to play too...

Here is Doug preparing to swing...

Aaron's legendary swing...watch out!

Doug in action...

Because we live on a giant lava rock, the course has it's own set of built in hazards. There are quite a few patches of exposed lava rock on the course and the fairways and greens aren't the smoothest, but that just adds to the fun. There are also other hazards that you don't often see on your typical country club course. For instance, the fire hazard:

Here I am golfing for maybe the 5th time in the past 20 years. Awesome.

LTM is still playing even as the moon begins to rise:

Not a bad place to end the week...