Day 54 - Wednesday, October 12 - Florida << Index
Anticipated: Play golf at Ft. Walton Beach Golf Club in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida
Travel:
  Itinerary:
Leave Wilma's home for 10:00AM tee time at Ft. Walton Beach Golf Club. After golf we will drive to a motel in Birmingham, Alabama. casino
  States/Provinces Played:
Web: www.foxwoodcc.com
Actual: (Photos and text)
Click on the photos below to enlarge

Welcome to Florida and Foxwood Country Club sign

Glenn Mashburn, the proshop attendant

The couple we met on the golf course, Jim and Judy Griffin

Scenes from the golf course

Scenes from the McMorrow home. The Bayou in the background has access to the Gulf of Mexico. (upper left) Willie McMorrow with Jim and Pat (upper right) Willie with her daughter Jeannie
Last night we enjoyed a Cajun dinner cooked on an outdoor grill. Wilma and her daughter Jeannie had a huge pot in which they boiled potatoes, corn, and fresh shrimp in a special large cooking utensil. The spices they added made everything taste “out of this world”. Prior to eating the main meal we each had a bowl of “gumbo” which tantalized our “taste-buds”. We had a very nostalgic visit during dinner with Wilma and Jerry McMorrow and two of their grown children, Jeannie and John. In the morning, Jeannie had to drive to Crestview to set-up a site for her business. The golf course we were playing today is located in Crestview, so she offered to drive to the course on her way to work so that we could follow her on the shortcut to the course.

Note: We and the McMurrows were friends in both Minneapolis and Grand Rapids during the 1960s. Jim and Jerry were engineers working on guidance computers for the Gemini and Apollo missiles in Minneapolis (Honeywell) and aircraft guidance systems in Grand Rapids (Lear Siegler).

We met Glenn Mashburn, the pro shop attendant when we walked into the shop. He was very cordial and helpful in getting us set up to tee off immediately. There was heavy dew on the golf course as we started our round, so for the first six or seven holes we didn’t get much roll. When the sun came out, it was quite humid because of the wet fairways; however, it soon dried out and the balls had better roll. On the eleventh hole we were joined by another couple who had been behind us since the first hole; however, when we caught the rest of the golfers in front of us, Jim and Judy Griffin caught up with us. We decided to play in together, and had a very enjoyable time with them. It turns out that they are also from Michigan (around the Jackson area). They come to the Fort Walton area for a couple of months each year and play many of the golf courses in the area. Foxwood Country Club of Crestview is one of their favorites.

Foxwood was a nice course to play. Fifteen of the eighteen holes had water somewhere on them, so we had to judge how far to hit the balls so that they would go over the water, or where to place them so that we wouldn’t go into the water! Jim shot an 89 (yardage = 6282) and Pat shot 113 (yardage = 5016).

After our round of golf, we headed north to Birmingham, Alabama where we will be playing round 55 at Bent Brook Golf Course.