Children's Miracle Network Golf Tournament
To my surprise, I found myself at the Children's Miracle Network PGA Tour event (this means "golf") last weekend, this a surprise largely because I forgot it was last weekend.
Anyway. The Children's Miracle Network is hosted by the PGA Tour at Walt Disney World on their Magnolia Course, this important mainly because that means that officials and employees and volunteers from multiple different groups - Disney, ESPN's Wide World of Sports, the PGA Tour, Children's Miracle Network, and the Orange County Sheriff's Department are all meandering around, not always consistently or agreeably. Since it's at the end of the tour, it's typically attended mostly by golfers who have not exactly done brilliantly in the past year and are thus desperate to earn their tour card for the following year, which adds another touch of tension to the event. Fail here, and, well, it's a lot of work to get back into the PGA tour.
We could not help noticing a few small differences between the Children's Miracle Network Golf Tournament held at the Magnolia Course at Disney, and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, held at Bay Hill, and a few small differences between this event and literally any other event held at Disney. For instance:
1. This is the only golf course where you enter and leave through a Disney gift store, which sells very cheerful golf shirts embroidered with Mickey.
2. This is also the only golf event where one of the bunkers is shaped like Mickey Mouse. (The accompanying sign cheerfully says that the bunker "never fails to draw a smile" no matter "where the ball happens to land on this very difficult hole. On a related note: no kidding: in order to avoid the water you almost have to aim your ball directly at Mickey's ears. Now that's a sentence I didn't think I would be typing.)
Also, this is the only golf event featuring a topiary of Snow White and one of the dwarfs. And where the PGA volunteers hold up signs saying "Please be as QUIET AS A MOUSE" because ha ha.
3. This is also the only golf course where you can constantly hear the Mickey Mouse train in the background. In fact I think it's easier to hear the Mickey Mouse train from this golf course than from inside the Magic Kingdom. Maybe the Seven Seas Lagoon echoes and enhances the sound. I don't know. It does go along with the various Mickey signs telling you which hole you are at and the nice signs giving the Storied Histories of each hole.
4. Disney is absolutely fine with everyone bringing in Nice Big Bags as long as they are more or less inspected and are not concealing guns or other things that go bang. The PGA Tour is Noticeably Not, because, and I'm sure you can all understand this, Big Bags could have CAMERAS, the EMBODIMENT OF EVIL for the PGA. As you are informed upon entering, absolutely no pictures whatsoever are allowed especially from your cell phone or other mobile device and any images that might just happen to pop up while you are there ALTHOUGH THEY SHOULDN'T belong absolutely and permanently to the PGA Tour. Since I'd completely forgotten about this I accidentally brought a nearly empty bag (which was, I hasten to add to you all, completely CAMERA FREE) but which was TOO TOO BIG which led to us having to leave the bag at the lost and found, which was about when my brother remembered that I also had the completely empty bag attached to my wheelchair, so we dumped that too and then finally headed out to the course, me clutching my clearly dangerous sunscreen in my little hand.
5. The PGA Tour also informed me that I absolutely, positively, could not tweet any of the results while on the course. So, despite knowing that a grand total of zero of my Twitter followers were eagerly awaiting my reports of golf scores, since those would not be widely available, say, on CBS, Yahoo, or any of a number of different entities faster than I could type in the results, I was very very good and just typed things like, "Also I was very very close to stuart appleby but I won't tell you what resulted!" (I think it's safe to tell you now - he hit a ball very close to us.) Also I told everyone about the topiaries. Only not where any of the PGA volunteers could see us.
6. Also, because we are no longer on Daylight Savings Time and the days are getting shorter, this tournament is still played on both sides of the course even on Sunday with three golfers per group, which makes it easier to see lots of golfers than it ordinarily would be on Sunday.
7. Anyway, we wandered around the golf course, watching golfers, and finding a surprising lack of food for Disney, and surprisingly decent bathrooms for a golf event. (Go Disney!) Also, a large flock of wild turkeys that were not exactly into golf, two eagles, lots of herons and ibises, some ducks, some squirrels, two lizards, and a very cute little bunny rabbit which technically was outside the course but which I am counting anyway.
7. There was a touch - just a touch - ok, more than a touch of tension between the Disney Wide World of Sports people/Disney workers and the PGA volunteers. The Disney workers had always run this event up until this year, and well, now they were only running PARTS of the event, but not the cool part that involves telling people to shut up and keeping track of the scores. You could tell the difference since the Disney people proudly wore nametags and the PGA volunteers did not. Also, the PGA volunteers, oddly enough, more than once did not know when to tell the spectators to shut up, forcing the caddies to interfere, or where exactly spectators can go around, which led to one interesting bit of pushing me over decidedly uneven ground which left me kinda dizzy. (The PGA volunteers at the Arnold Palmer Invitational are better trained, but that is a better paying event attracting a stronger field of golfers.)
8. Towards the end of the tournament, we meandered back to the 18th hole to watch the last groups come in, only to be stopped by Disney employees who asked if we would prefer to be up in the bleachers, which had a nice elevator and everything.
This was a nice and kindly thought, and it's not exactly Disney's fault that it went wrong. The elevator was not exactly an elevator, but rather an elevator lift, which a) scared me, and b) could only be operated by one (1) key and person - the same key and person operating the two other elevator lifts including the one for the People Considerably More Important Than You Tent, which meant that getting on the lift required waiting and waiting and hearing - not seeing - one of the golf groups go through until the key guy ambled up and let us up.
"Last year we ALL had keys," said the Disney people mournfully. "This year they TOOK THEM AWAY. We're TRYING to show them that we all NEED KEYS. We don't know WHY they did this and gave the keys to only one person. [a PGA, not Disney person, even though these were Disney bleachers with Disney people]"
I could not help but feel that I had been in some small way dragged into a Disney/PGA power struggle.
Apart from this, the bleachers bounced every time anyone walked, clapped, stood up, shifted, or in fact did anything that might be placed under "movement" which was pretty much all the time, with the result that after about five minutes I was feeling a bit dizzy and ten minutes later feeling very dizzy. Getting off the bleachers, however, meant Summoning the Key Guy again, which was a process that I felt was somewhat beyond me. So instead I tried to watch everyone gathering at the 18th hole (bounce bounce), and by "everyone" (bounce) I mean "spectators, volunteers, and the Mickey Mouse band (bounce bounce bounce)," and tried to send out "sit still. sit very very still" vibes at the bleachers which if nothing else proved that I do not, in fact, have the mutant ability to mind control complete strangers. And now you know. (bounce)
9. Most tournaments end with various people coming out to congratulate the winning golfer and handing him or her a trophy. This tournament ends with Mickey Mouse striding onto the green followed by the Mickey Mouse band playing zip did dee do dah, zip did de day. And since I am no longer reporting live or on Twitter, I can now tell you that the winner was the same guy who started the tournament suffering from a major panic attack requiring hospitalization, so that was kinda cool. Also he has a very very cute kid.
10. By that time I was really feeling that I had to get off the bleachers, like now, and since I'd been warned this was a long process my brother pushed me over to the lift, then looked at me skeptically.
"Do you think you can get down the stairs on your own if I carry the wheelchair?"
"Maybe."
"...We might end up doing that."
I sent him back to watch Mickey shake the hand of the winner (who had to sign his golf card first) and get the trophy and listened to Mickey songs while I waited and waited and waited....
10. And finally I was off the bleachers and at the lost and found and then at Shades of Green which quite apart from giving military families a nice discounted place to stay at Disney also has very nice bathrooms and a lovely waterfall thing. (Really a lovely waterfall thing that helps lead military families to the Shades of Green buses which whisk them to the parks where they can spend lots of money all relaxed from the waterfalls.)
11. Pretend point 11 contains something bouncy.
Anyway. The Children's Miracle Network is hosted by the PGA Tour at Walt Disney World on their Magnolia Course, this important mainly because that means that officials and employees and volunteers from multiple different groups - Disney, ESPN's Wide World of Sports, the PGA Tour, Children's Miracle Network, and the Orange County Sheriff's Department are all meandering around, not always consistently or agreeably. Since it's at the end of the tour, it's typically attended mostly by golfers who have not exactly done brilliantly in the past year and are thus desperate to earn their tour card for the following year, which adds another touch of tension to the event. Fail here, and, well, it's a lot of work to get back into the PGA tour.
We could not help noticing a few small differences between the Children's Miracle Network Golf Tournament held at the Magnolia Course at Disney, and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, held at Bay Hill, and a few small differences between this event and literally any other event held at Disney. For instance:
1. This is the only golf course where you enter and leave through a Disney gift store, which sells very cheerful golf shirts embroidered with Mickey.
2. This is also the only golf event where one of the bunkers is shaped like Mickey Mouse. (The accompanying sign cheerfully says that the bunker "never fails to draw a smile" no matter "where the ball happens to land on this very difficult hole. On a related note: no kidding: in order to avoid the water you almost have to aim your ball directly at Mickey's ears. Now that's a sentence I didn't think I would be typing.)
Also, this is the only golf event featuring a topiary of Snow White and one of the dwarfs. And where the PGA volunteers hold up signs saying "Please be as QUIET AS A MOUSE" because ha ha.
3. This is also the only golf course where you can constantly hear the Mickey Mouse train in the background. In fact I think it's easier to hear the Mickey Mouse train from this golf course than from inside the Magic Kingdom. Maybe the Seven Seas Lagoon echoes and enhances the sound. I don't know. It does go along with the various Mickey signs telling you which hole you are at and the nice signs giving the Storied Histories of each hole.
4. Disney is absolutely fine with everyone bringing in Nice Big Bags as long as they are more or less inspected and are not concealing guns or other things that go bang. The PGA Tour is Noticeably Not, because, and I'm sure you can all understand this, Big Bags could have CAMERAS, the EMBODIMENT OF EVIL for the PGA. As you are informed upon entering, absolutely no pictures whatsoever are allowed especially from your cell phone or other mobile device and any images that might just happen to pop up while you are there ALTHOUGH THEY SHOULDN'T belong absolutely and permanently to the PGA Tour. Since I'd completely forgotten about this I accidentally brought a nearly empty bag (which was, I hasten to add to you all, completely CAMERA FREE) but which was TOO TOO BIG which led to us having to leave the bag at the lost and found, which was about when my brother remembered that I also had the completely empty bag attached to my wheelchair, so we dumped that too and then finally headed out to the course, me clutching my clearly dangerous sunscreen in my little hand.
5. The PGA Tour also informed me that I absolutely, positively, could not tweet any of the results while on the course. So, despite knowing that a grand total of zero of my Twitter followers were eagerly awaiting my reports of golf scores, since those would not be widely available, say, on CBS, Yahoo, or any of a number of different entities faster than I could type in the results, I was very very good and just typed things like, "Also I was very very close to stuart appleby but I won't tell you what resulted!" (I think it's safe to tell you now - he hit a ball very close to us.) Also I told everyone about the topiaries. Only not where any of the PGA volunteers could see us.
6. Also, because we are no longer on Daylight Savings Time and the days are getting shorter, this tournament is still played on both sides of the course even on Sunday with three golfers per group, which makes it easier to see lots of golfers than it ordinarily would be on Sunday.
7. Anyway, we wandered around the golf course, watching golfers, and finding a surprising lack of food for Disney, and surprisingly decent bathrooms for a golf event. (Go Disney!) Also, a large flock of wild turkeys that were not exactly into golf, two eagles, lots of herons and ibises, some ducks, some squirrels, two lizards, and a very cute little bunny rabbit which technically was outside the course but which I am counting anyway.
7. There was a touch - just a touch - ok, more than a touch of tension between the Disney Wide World of Sports people/Disney workers and the PGA volunteers. The Disney workers had always run this event up until this year, and well, now they were only running PARTS of the event, but not the cool part that involves telling people to shut up and keeping track of the scores. You could tell the difference since the Disney people proudly wore nametags and the PGA volunteers did not. Also, the PGA volunteers, oddly enough, more than once did not know when to tell the spectators to shut up, forcing the caddies to interfere, or where exactly spectators can go around, which led to one interesting bit of pushing me over decidedly uneven ground which left me kinda dizzy. (The PGA volunteers at the Arnold Palmer Invitational are better trained, but that is a better paying event attracting a stronger field of golfers.)
8. Towards the end of the tournament, we meandered back to the 18th hole to watch the last groups come in, only to be stopped by Disney employees who asked if we would prefer to be up in the bleachers, which had a nice elevator and everything.
This was a nice and kindly thought, and it's not exactly Disney's fault that it went wrong. The elevator was not exactly an elevator, but rather an elevator lift, which a) scared me, and b) could only be operated by one (1) key and person - the same key and person operating the two other elevator lifts including the one for the People Considerably More Important Than You Tent, which meant that getting on the lift required waiting and waiting and hearing - not seeing - one of the golf groups go through until the key guy ambled up and let us up.
"Last year we ALL had keys," said the Disney people mournfully. "This year they TOOK THEM AWAY. We're TRYING to show them that we all NEED KEYS. We don't know WHY they did this and gave the keys to only one person. [a PGA, not Disney person, even though these were Disney bleachers with Disney people]"
I could not help but feel that I had been in some small way dragged into a Disney/PGA power struggle.
Apart from this, the bleachers bounced every time anyone walked, clapped, stood up, shifted, or in fact did anything that might be placed under "movement" which was pretty much all the time, with the result that after about five minutes I was feeling a bit dizzy and ten minutes later feeling very dizzy. Getting off the bleachers, however, meant Summoning the Key Guy again, which was a process that I felt was somewhat beyond me. So instead I tried to watch everyone gathering at the 18th hole (bounce bounce), and by "everyone" (bounce) I mean "spectators, volunteers, and the Mickey Mouse band (bounce bounce bounce)," and tried to send out "sit still. sit very very still" vibes at the bleachers which if nothing else proved that I do not, in fact, have the mutant ability to mind control complete strangers. And now you know. (bounce)
9. Most tournaments end with various people coming out to congratulate the winning golfer and handing him or her a trophy. This tournament ends with Mickey Mouse striding onto the green followed by the Mickey Mouse band playing zip did dee do dah, zip did de day. And since I am no longer reporting live or on Twitter, I can now tell you that the winner was the same guy who started the tournament suffering from a major panic attack requiring hospitalization, so that was kinda cool. Also he has a very very cute kid.
10. By that time I was really feeling that I had to get off the bleachers, like now, and since I'd been warned this was a long process my brother pushed me over to the lift, then looked at me skeptically.
"Do you think you can get down the stairs on your own if I carry the wheelchair?"
"Maybe."
"...We might end up doing that."
I sent him back to watch Mickey shake the hand of the winner (who had to sign his golf card first) and get the trophy and listened to Mickey songs while I waited and waited and waited....
10. And finally I was off the bleachers and at the lost and found and then at Shades of Green which quite apart from giving military families a nice discounted place to stay at Disney also has very nice bathrooms and a lovely waterfall thing. (Really a lovely waterfall thing that helps lead military families to the Shades of Green buses which whisk them to the parks where they can spend lots of money all relaxed from the waterfalls.)
11. Pretend point 11 contains something bouncy.