Are We in The Nest? One Man’s NIT Weekend Experience (Apologies in Advance for the Novel)
Every single element of my day is better when I have a tee time. The iPhone alarm music isn’t quite as annoying, the coffee tastes a little bit better, the grass is a little bit greener. The sun even shines a little bit brighter, despite that on this day, the Friday of the Nest Invitational Tournament, Jacksonville Beach’s heavens have opened with a small deluge beginning around sunrise. I challenge you to find 87 men and one lady more nervous than those of us standing in that cart barn as the minutes counted down before our shotgun start, watching hopelessly as another storm cell passed overhead. When the rains finally quieted for a few minutes, 20 range balls and a soaked putting green were the only thing standing between me and my first shot on the Par-3 12th hole. At 142 yards and slightly into the fan, I took 15 of the 20 balls to rehearse the high cut 9-iron I knew I needed to hit come 8:15am sharp.
Are we in the Nest? Because as it turned out, my 9-iron didn’t cut, but I blacked out the entire swing and was legitimately thrilled I made contact at all. You see, by Saturday night, you may have seen me dancing around celebrating Notre Dame touchdowns like I was surrounded by 87 of my best friends, not the 87 strangers I shared a welcome tent with on Thursday night. I didn’t know anybody at the Cog Hill event I was able to qualify from, and I surely didn’t know anybody walking up on Thursday night either. I was thankful my girlfriend could attend with me so that I didn’t have to stand alone. Here I was, actually at an event I knew I wanted to be at so desperately - yet rendered an outsider at something I so desperately wanted to be a part of. How do you reconcile those two thoughts?
So yes, I was nervous standing over that tee shot on Friday morning. Not just because I haven’t played in many golf tournaments and I wanted to succeed, and not just because I know I get the pull hooks when I get nervous, and not even just because one of the three strangers I’m paired up with is the one and only @Tron Carter, pseudo-celebrity in his own right and one of the masterminds of the very community I’m trying to become a part of – but also because I neglected to bring any rain gear on my trip to Florida thinking I’d be on vacation for a week and thinking I was going to throw that 9-iron further than the ball with my already wet grips and borderline saturated glove. I went left of the pin and had a tricky little 25-footer from the paspalum fringe over a hill and back up to the hole that I somehow managed to put to about three feet and drilled the clean up effort in the middle of the hole.
“Great three!” said Tron as he gave me a fist bump. And just like that, we were just four guys thrilled to be playing golf on a weekday. And then I proceeded to pull hook the drive on the 13th directly into the water fountains.
It’s sometimes difficult to express what No Laying Up is to my friends, my family, my girlfriend. They asked why I wanted to play golf in the sleet and wind at Cog Hill with internet strangers, or why I’d travel to Florida during a pandemic to do the same. But the fact is that for every single inch I’ve given the NLU community, I’ve gotten a mile back in return. One fist bump with someone you’ve heard talk golf on a podcast 100 times, and there you are talking about how for every 18th hole at Jax Beach there’s a beauty like the 5th, like you’ve known each other for years, not minutes. One mention of common ground to @kevjones about being from Illinois and fast forward 48 hours to squeezing in an emergency nine holes of Scottish Foursomes and asking @PrivateCollection if we can steal a cooler to shepherd 50 extra Fat Tires and Voodoo Rangers out to the gang crowded around the 16th green watching JCO clinch the inaugural NIT championship in the dark. One ‘Go Irish’ to @RonniePND and I knew I had someone to watch ND take on Clemson with by ourselves on the JBGC patio. One post on the Nest that I didn’t know anyone and I was invited to play at White Oak among the rhinos by @Hwhite and @OfftheDole within 10 minutes.
I didn’t post the scores I wanted to this weekend (shoutout sideways rain, 30-mph winds, a few too many New Belgium products, and pin placements by Tronald Ross), but I couldn’t care less. Every single person I was lucky enough to play golf with made my weekend better. Morale was high even when the double bogey counts got higher, one might even say we were viiiiiibing.
Suffice it to say, I’d give anything to go back to Friday morning and blackout over a 9-iron again. Maybe this time that ball would cut, but quite frankly, it doesn’t matter if it would. Thanks so much to the NLU Guis and Erin for the work they did to make this event not only memorable but truly one of a kind – and thanks so much to all of y’all in the Nest that made this weekend and this group truly special. If you’re ever in Chicago, know you’ve got a friend here to get a game going.
BabblingBrooksKoepka