The summer of 1987 I enter the DuPont World Amateur Championship held in Myrtle Beach, SC. I have a handicap of 8 and I don't expect to do well as there are over 1,000 entries. The tournament is played over four days at four different courses for each flight. The better courses and played by the lower handicapiers. Each day there is a shotgun start at all the courses. Note: in 2004 there were nearly 4,000 entries.

Jeanne went along and followed me around some of the play to take some photographs. Each day after the round all entrants and wifes were invited to the Myrtle Beach Convention Center for free snacks and drinks. The food was so good that this is where we had out dinner. Finger food was plentiful and there was even carved ham and roast beef. The last night was for handing out the prizes, one of which was a drawing for a new car!

The weather was quite warm one day so shorts were ideal. Starting early in the morning with high humidity meant there was plenty of dew on the practice putting green.

After three rounds I was in 3rd place in the 0-10 seniors but an extremely poor 4th day, shot an 87, put me out of the running.

My company, Columbia Gas, sent me to Albuquerque, NM, for a seminar. Luckily, I was able to fly out on Saturday and spent several days enjoying the area. I woke up one morning to heard a strange noise outside and found the hotel parking lots and adjacent full of hot air balloons.

I quickly got dressed, grabbed my camera and hit the pavement running. I was really neat to watch the balloons begining filled and rising in the cool morning air.

Our home, Anderson, SC, is now the home to the national hot air balloon races which I was watching in Albuquerque that morning.