Another Slice

I’m still working hard on Dave Pelz’s approach to mastering the short game.

I was out a few weeks ago with a friend.  I was on the 4th fairway– dead-center, 90 yards from the pin– and I started to explain Dave’s clock-face visualization: essentially, if you imagine the face of an alarm clock, the position of your hands in your backswing can be anywhere from 7:30 (for very short) to 9:00, to 10:30, to high noon (or midnight, depending on your optimism/pessimism quotient).

Anyway, after explaining to my friend that a 90-yard shot should probably be a 10:30 backswing with a gap wedge, I proceeded to airmail the green by a good 20 yards.

My friend, barely suppressing outright guffaws, suggested that maybe I should’ve set my alarm a little earlier.

Anyway, as the accompanying photo portrays, my progress is often slow going.

And uphill.

I’m lucky I enjoy this game so much.

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Well, the Olympics are over, and they were even better than one might’ve hoped.

Croatia, which had my favorite flag, wound up with 2 silver medals (men’s alpine super combined and slalom) and 1 bronze (men’s 10K sprint biathlon).

Our nearest neighbor, as far as I can tell (his parents live 4 blocks away) Chris Klug, competing in his 4th Olympics, finished a strong 7th in the men’s alpine parallel GS snowboard competition.

The cool thing about the Olympics– and you should be able to say this about almost every athletic competition– is that everybody who competes is an absolute winner.  True champion.  I realize that people get disappointed when a given individual doesn’t succeed, but it’s the commitment and the dedication that set these athletes apart from the rest of us.

This week, locally, we’re hosting a World Cup Paralympics event, the last of the season heading into the championships in 2 weeks up in (!) Vancouver.

My 15-year-old was out at Buttermilk on Sunday, and he said, “They go really fast!”  These, also, are world-class athletes, not “handicapped” people you have to feel sorry for.  They motor.

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So they’ve had to cancel training for the men’s downhill at the Olympics.  Rain, sleet, etc.

Some friends went up there a few weeks ago– albeit for free– and were greeted with rain at the bottom, freezing high winds at the top.  And I thought to myself: Sounds like Stowe!

Anyway, back here in Colorado, we haven’t had an epic winter thus far.  (And I bought a new snowblower this past fall.  I should’ve saved my money.)  But at least it hasn’t rained.  You have no idea what rain can do to “dampen” the collective spirits in a ski resort.

Tomorrow morning I’ll probably have to console myself with a mere 6 inches of fresh snow on Aspen Mountain, or out at Snowmass.

I might even wind up, if I dip into the trees, looking a bit like the guy in the picture.  He looks like he could do with a hot chocolate.

Speaking of which, I was driving down my street the other day, and there was a guy walking down the street with his back to me, walking really stiffly.  And I mentioned to my wife, “This guy looks really cold.”

And we drove by, and it turned out to be a neighbor who’s a ski instructor, dressed in civvies.

And the reason he was walking so stiffly was because he’d had hernia surgery the day before.  And he said that he was planning to be back teaching in a few more days.

A Few More Days!  Imagine that!  I don’t know much about medicine, but that’s pretty incredible.  Years ago, I had a roommate who had hernia surgery, and he was laid up for months!  (Granted, his may have been more severe, and he wasn’t exactly a world-class athlete, but still…)

So whatever the mess our health-care system is in, at least sometimes they can actually heal you!

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Just in case you’ve never actually seen an X-Games monster halfpipe.

In this case, referred to as a “Superpipe,” here’s a photo taken from the bottom, looking up toward the start house.  Those little ant-like creatures in the middle are a competitor and a hand-held cameraman following her.  (The camerman is 22 feet below those folks you can see standing on the lip, to his left.) 

And as with any snow event, it’s a heckuva lot scarier in real life, whether you’re at the top looking down, on even standing up on the lips at either side.

Though I’ve always found this strange:  Ski slopes themselves always seem steeper and more difficult when you’re standing on them in the summer, when it’s just rocks and weeds, and looking down and imagining having to negotiate your way down.  Once there’s a nice blanket of snow, however big the moguls are, it seems a lot easier.  Strange. 

The X-Games organizers put on a new competition this year, at the tail end of Sunday night:  They selected 6 guys (skiers, not boarders) and had them just try to see who could get the highest (above the lip on either side).  No tricks, no style points, just height.  All they had to do was jump real high, then land clean– no hands, no butt slides.

The winner, Peter Olenick (from just down the road in Carbondale), posted a jump of 24 feet, 11 inches.  (And that’s not from the bottom, inside the pipe.  That’s from the lip, which is 22 feet above the bottom, inside.  And remember: It’s built on a ski run, so the whole thing’s tilted… down… severely.  Yikes.)

And did I mention that the surface is as hard as a skating rink?  So you have to be able to ride a flat ski on your way up, then grab an edge real quick when you land.  Obviously, you’re not going in there with standard recreational skis.

You’re not required to do this, when you come out to visit.

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Did you ever notice how it always snows right before a ski event?  Not two weeks ahead of time, when you’re doing course prep work, but right before it?  When you specifically don’t want it to snow?

Well, we finally got some new snow over the weekend…

… and the X-Games start Thursday.

And it’s supposed to snow again Tuesday.

So now I’m getting calls to “volunteer” to help slip the courses, starting with practice on Tuesday.  Through the weekend, I presume.  (Though ESPN apparently pays you to help.  Which in itself is a pretty foreign concept.  Getting paid to help out at a ski event?  How corporate can you get?)

On the bright side, one of my kid’s friends left her bike in the yard this fall, and despite of repeated pleas to take it home, it’s still out there.  It made for the subject of my wife’s Christmas-card painting this year.

And now that we’re done with football– except for the Super Bowl, which I don’t count as real football– I’m starting to wonder when I’m gonna start clicking on the Golf Channel for brief, surreptitious fixes.  And I’ll be wondering how soon my son’s going to mention the possibility of driving down to Battlement Mesa for a quick round.  So far, we’re settled into a pretty good ski groove.  But that’ll have to end, someday.

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Number One (and only) Son won his group in this year’s first terrain-park competition, this past Saturday on Snowmass’s Coney Glade.

In case you’re not familar with slopestyle and half-pipe skiing, that’s where you do tricks: monster jumps (seriously huge), rails, boxes, wheels, etc.  And, of course, half-pipe, where you zoom up the walls of a big… half-pipe.. and execute various mid-air maneuvers.  Scary.  Like you see on the ESPN X-Games, which are coming up later this month from Buttermilk (here in Aspen).

Anyway, after walking away with the win, he explained to me that he only needs one more win– anytime this year– to qualify for Nationals.  Wherever they’re gonna be.  Hope they’re not up in Vermont, or Alaska.

One way or another, I’d better change the oil in the family vehicle.  And stock up on spring wax and road treats.

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He always has a smile on his face!

At age 90!

Klaus Obermeyer, founder of Aspen-based Obermeyer Skiwear, skis every day.  With a big smile on his face.

A young woman who’s part of our family (she’s an opera singer, and once spent a couple of summers living with us as a student at the Music Festival & School) dropped over yesterday from her vacation stay in Vail, for a much-needed (and too-short) visit.  She’s pretty, young, and German: a perfect recipe for Klaus.  So when he found out she was coming over, he asked her to join him for a few runs.  (Note:  He didn’t ask me along.)

They yelled and happily waved at me from the chairlift at Buttermilk yesterday afternoon, as they were riding up and I was hiking down.  (And thank heavens: I was wearing Obermeyer duds when they saw me!)  (Just joking:  Klaus wouldn’t care if I walked down naked.  Actually, he’d get a kick out of that.  Probably throw me some sunscreen.)  Katja confirmed something most of us know:  Klaus never really turns.  He just finesses his way down the mountain.  (Which might be a good goal for most everyone.  And not just skiing.)

Klaus always seems to get a kick out of life.  And you can’t say: “Well, what do you expect?  He’s rich!”  (And at his 90th birthday party, the Ski Company gave him a free ski pass for life– which is nothing to sneeze at– and The Wienerstube–where he eats almost every morning– gave him free meals for life!) 

His take on it is:  He’s healthy, and all of his loved ones are healthy, and everything else is a bonus.  And why not appreciate all the bonuses?  Every day should be a blessing, and a pleasure.

At least we could all start off every morning with a smile on our face.

Klaus does.  And look where it got him!

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Even my son and I won’t stoop to this.

Not yet.

But it’s only January.  And he threw a fit when he couldn’t go to Florida, after a friend invited him short-notice, over Christmas break.

So check back with me in March.

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Now that we’ve got the Christmas decorations in place, it’s time to either get back to work or get outside and have some fun!

Dropped my 15-year-old off at school this morning, cuz they won’t let the kids take their skis on the bus.  (Seriously.  In Aspen.  You can’t take your skis with you, on the school bus.  And we parents always thought the kids were making that up.)

Anyway, as he was getting out of the car, I asked, “You got your helmet?”  And he yelled back, “It’s in my backpack!”

Yeah, right.

Couldn’t help remembering, looking at the picture here, of “the old days” when I worked for what’s now the Aspen Skiing Company.  And in January or February, we’d get the “get out of Dodge” itch, and drive down to Rifle for 9 holes on the golf course there.  And the only other people out there…

… would be other Aspen Skiing Company employees!  And we’d all promise not to tell on each other.

This photo looks like I’m standing at the top of Silver Rush, near the top of Lift 1A, with Gents’ Ridge and Jackpot way in the background.  I don’t think I can carry it!

Dreamin’, as always.

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