Saturday was the day to join the Invitational for Ladies Golf at Cedar Ridge in Cedar City, Utah. I volunteered to fill in for someone who had needed to drop out due to illness. Ed, being the kind man and dedicated golfer that he is, offered to go to the golf course with me on Thursday to get acquainted with the course which has expanded to 18 holes from the previous nine that I had played. It had been years ago last played but Cedar City is a good 10 or 12 degrees cooler than St. George.
The setting is gorgeous against the green high mountains and red cliffs. The thing is that I had read a book by Terry Tempest Williams who discussed prairie dogs in southern Utah and those in the Cedar City area as well as those near Bryce Canyon. Someone had told me also that if a golf ball was lost in a hole, the golfer got a free drop. The day that Ed and I played we donated a lot of balls but I could not blame the prairie dogs. Just the golfers.
There has been some controversy over land development up there versus prairie dog protected environments. Some sort of truce must exist with golfers because I counted as many as sixteen burroughs and dogs on one hole. They are kind of cute. The dogs stand up or just lounge around looking at the carts. They also eye the balls and I believe they have been known to take a view. I am surprised we didn't see any snakes although we did see ravens and eagles circling in the sky.
The Saturday open included about a hundred women, some of whom braved road construction on I-15 to get there. All in all it was a wonderful time for everyone. Good food, good company and for some good golf, door prizes and wins. I think the golf pro, John Evans, a very nice gentlemen, was kidding when he said our low net of 54 was the record for the course. I wish I could win by gross scores so that my friends wouldn't accuse me of sandbagging. But a win is a win and the ladies in our foursome were in mid-seventies to middle eighties and still playing which deserves some praise. It was wonderful to find people who can laugh at errors, prairie dogs and good jokes and make a few pars while they are at it.
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