1. While the pin placements were wicked today and the turf at Royal St. George's was a little drier, the weather for the third round was benign. As a result, no many players shot really low scores, but those players at the top of the leaderboard all broke par. All had some rough patches in their rounds. Collin Morikawa started the round unsteadily, Louis Oosthuizen wobbled some near the middle of the back nine, and Jordan Spieth bogeyed the last two holes, moving him to rush in a trot off the course to the practice putting green.
Going into the final round, Oosthuizen leads Morikawa by a stroke and Spieth by three. I would love to be able to intelligently assess who I think will win the Open Championship, but I have no clue. I can't pretend to know how these players atop the leaderboard will play tomorrow. You'd think after watching golf tournaments for over fifty years that I'd have a clue regarding what to expect. I don't. I don't even know what it will come down to -- straight drives? iron play? scrambling? putting touch? control of emotions? All of these factors? These players play such an advanced game of golf, I can't begin to say. Luckily, my enjoyment of the game doesn't depend on making predictions. I simply enjoy watching these players face the rigors of playing links golf.
2. This afternoon, our family piled into Carol and Paul's back yard to commemorate Zoe's 27th birthday. Zoe requested grilled hamburgers for her birthday meal. Christy brought a delicious potato salad. I pitched in with a rice salad. Cosette and Zoe teamed up to make cocktails, a tart French 75 and a nicely balanced Lemon Drop. We enjoyed a moist zucchini-chocolate cake and a scoop of ice cream for dessert.
It was a fun get together. I was especially grateful for the slightly cooler weather. After all the days we've had of temperatures over 90 and 100 degrees, it was remarkable how comfortable an afternoon in the mid-80s felt.
3. The years I taught at LCC are no longer very distinct from one another in my mind. I'm Facebook friends with several of my former students and, in most cases, I can no longer pinpoint what year or years we worked together. It always makes me beam, however, when I learn more about how they are doing. From afar I've enjoyed pictures of their vacations, of learning about new babies being born and growing up, reading about marriages starting, others ending and new relationships forming, businesses thriving. Some of my former students have moved across the country; one headed east and has returned to Oregon again. I've read about sobriety anniversaries, theater successes, forest fire fighting, and college degrees completed.
One of my former students, Leah, has painful memories of traumatic events in her life return to her every summer. Today I discovered that this year, knowing that this difficult time was upon her, Leah decided to turn some of her attention to writing about what she's grateful for and has been making daily Three Beautiful Things posts. I hope they've been therapeutic for Leah. I know they've been a joy to read.
I'm deeply impressed with Leah's determination to relish her time with her children, to photograph the beauty in her life (especially her children), and the work she is doing to enhance her home business.
Reading Leah's 3BTs takes me back to conversations Leah and I used to have in my office. Leah used to drop by from time to time to shoot the breeze. I enjoyed these conversations a lot. Leah's current writing may not bring back all the content of our long ago conversations, but her graceful prose brings back the spirit of our talks and some of my favorite memories as a teacher.
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