A Deserving Champion

I can't imagine that our chapter started in a remarkably different way than any other chapter.  A group of friends wanted to keep golfing together.  The MGA name spoke to us.  We are mediocre.  We are golfers.  We are not serious.  We get it.

As those first tournaments passed, the story of the World Championship spread like a game of telephone played in golf carts and on putting greens.  It's in Vegas but I think you have to qualify.  Wait, how many chapters go to this?  What do you win?  There's a belt!

Can you imagine winning that belt and the night we would have in Vegas?

Can you imagine winning?

Under Ian's leadership and the joy that comes with believing you are in on a secret that you want to share, the Tallahassee Chapter grew.  Year to year we always seemed to gain a few more medios than we lost.  We started traditions and some even stuck. The Breakfast of Winners.  The Seminole Cup.  The Rose Chug.  We created our own unique history filled with our own unique characters with names like Left Handed Guest, The Mountain, and Fuck Toy, to name a very few.  We produced a freaking documentary.  We started a podcast.  We were rewarded by the golf Gods and won a free entry into the championship against extremely long odds. 

We made our way to the World Championship and found it to be everything we had hoped for.  And in one of the few quiet moments on that trip, all of us asked ourselves the same question; can you imagine winning?  Usually, that question was answered promptly.  It turns out that drinking, gambling, bowling (yes there used to be a bowling event), and sleep deprivation are not a conducive combination for conquering difficult golf courses that you have rarely played, if ever.  We accumulated tales to take back with us to Tallahassee to seduce others to join us. Top Golf. Sam's Town. The Coke Bus. The Panama Invasion. NFL Sunday. Oh yeah, and we golfed too.  

We watched as others were crowned champions and we knew there was nothing they did that we couldn't.  We judged them unmercifully without care or consideration that we were probably (definitely) wearing our jealousies on our sleeves.  Just wait until next year.  Can you imagine?

Suddenly we found ourselves in 2022 and off went the latest coterie of Tallahassee Medios, leaving their families behind to deal with Florida's latest hurricane on their own.  Those of us who stayed behind and immediately regretted it begged for constant updates.  Where are you staying on Wednesday?  What time is Top Golf?  Send pictures.  Where are you going for dinner?  Good luck tomorrow.

What did you score?

Wait Joey did what?  82?  He's in fucking first?!  Panic.  Terror.  Excitement.  Can you imagine if he won?

I woke up Saturday morning and checked the cost of flights.

All these years and the shared dream seemed so close to reality.  The hazy image in all of our minds was slowly starting to come into focus.

I took a breath, returned to reality, and headed to the golf course to meet three other medios stuck here like me, subject to only sporadic updates, left only to our imaginations.  We convinced ourselves that he could do it because we all wanted it so badly.  He's mentally tough.  His game is so solid right now.  He knows that course.  This is the year.  All we could do was wait.

The results started to creep in slowly, like election night results after 7 pm poll closings.  Joey reported that he was playing well but I think we all recognized a tone of resignation and that it wasn't quite good enough.  We were disappointed but proud of the effort.  Ian shot an 82.  Another incredible, albeit short effort.

At least Florida State was beating Syracuse.

And then from nowhere this......"Yo. So. Currently Dan is tied for the lead in the clubhouse."

The lead for what?

No way.

Holy shit!

omg

I'm shitting.

There are medios who get it and medios who don't.  If you know that every event is a dress-up event, you get it.  If you watch the Breakfast of Winners from a safe distance, deeply hoping to host it just one time, you get it.  If you create an anonymous Twitter fan account for a TLH MGA-themed podcast, you get it.  If you end up hosting that same podcast, you get it.  If you bestow the title of Lord upon yourself and through all of the eye-rolls, continue to force it upon us until it actually sticks, you get it.  If you find joy in watching other medios win as much as when you win, you get it.  If you know that attending the World Championship, even just once, is as much about expanding our story as winning an event full of (by definition) average golfers, you get it.  And I believe that if you combine all of those things, the golf Gods may choose to shine their light on you for just one day.  How else can you explain that 83, a score that even El Presidente thought had to be a mistake?  How do you explain that sharp left turn of the ball, a split second before cascading into the cup, forever changing us all?  Dan gets it, he has always gotten it.  He is simultaneously Everyman and one of a kind.  He is the Champion that this Championship truly deserves and I am proud that he is ours.