First time to the driving range

I was at work today, talking to Heather and we thought it would be fun if we finally took the boys to the driving range. With all the golfing that they've been doing at home, I've been so much wanting to take them to the range. We finally did it.

On the way there, I was explaining what we were going to do: "Now, guys, we're going to a golf course. When we get there, you have to be quiet and no running around. We're going get many golf balls in bucket and hit many many balls. At home we run after the balls, but here we don't, we just hit more." Owen sums it up perfectly: "Just like on baby golf!" (the golf video we have watched in the past).

We went to the Center Valley Club - which is a really nice public golf club around here. For the first (and only to-date) time, we could understand why someone might want to a member of a golf club. It was a gorgeous spring day - early evening - a light, warm wind was blowing across the fields, and there were a number of people enjoying hitting balls. It felt relaxing, low key, fun and delightful. Now of course, with one notable exception, they were all white, but it did give us a sense of it.

I bought tokens at the Pro Shop to get balls from the ball machine; they tumbled out of the machine and into the buckets and off we went. Got to the driving range and setup. K&O teed right up and whack! Cracked the ball straight out. It was a glorious sight.

The man next to us just chuckled and chuckled. And then said: "They both have very natural swings - that's great!" And the pointing at Owen - "And really great for a lefty!"

We very very quickly went through 70 balls. There was a little flag out about 20 yards away and Kyle hit it 3 times. Wow - that kid can hit it straight and pretty much anywhere he wants. Owen has a really BIG swing, but Kyle has accuracy.

When we ran out of balls, we ran back to the pro shop to get more tokens and ran to the dispenser. Kyle put his token in and got more balls. While Owen was putting his token in, we look over and Kyle has walked off carting his bucket of balls - he couldn't be bothered to wait for his brother!

On the second set of 70 balls, K&O started to look around at other people hitting. Kyle noticed that people dump their balls out into the feeder on the ground and said "Papi, can I do it?" So of course we did. Owen started noticing how other people were swinging and his swing almost doubled in size as he wrapped his whole body around.

As I looked over at Heather, then at my boys hitting balls and out at the beautiful scenery, I was looking through time, across the future of our life as a family, and it was wonderful.

And I only got to hit something like 4 balls total.