After an errant inbound throw wound up bouncing around and rolling off of Benton’s head, he got a case of the giggles, but played through it:

He holds his own — falls somewhere in the middle of the roster skills-wise and really seems to enjoy it.

While Benton was at baseball practice, Carson and I headed to Smuirfield, the neighborhood pitch-and-putt, and that was so much fun that we headed back today with Benton.

Benton launched a beauty on the “long” hole:

Carson had some good hits, too:

The boys both got behind the camera a few times and managed to capture me hacking up some grass:

A beautiful spring day in central Ohio — it’s like a beautiful winter day in central Texas, but in Technicolor.

It’s a fun place to go during the day, but even more fun at night! If we have three or more players, the game goes something like this:

1. One person takes a headlamp, walks to any of the pins, hangs the headlamp on it, and steps off the green
2. The other players then play to that hole
3. The loser of the hole then takes the headlamp and walks to another hole, and the other players repeat step 2

It’s a simple system — you lose a hole, you walk. Sound like fun? Become a fan of our Facebook page!

The Problem

The headlamp is imperfect. It doesn’t really fit on top of the pin all that well, and if the pin swings or the headlamp slips, it can be tough to see from the tee. And, the headlamp that works the best is my nice headlamp, and I’m convinced it’s going to get lost or whacked with a golf ball sooner or later.

The Solution

We’ve all kicked around various ideas for a better lighting solution, but we didn’t have anything concrete. When I saw a set of flashlights at Lowe’s for $7 (batteries included) that included three 9-LED cylindrical flashlights, I had to grab it! The basic flashlight:

Benton and I managed to pop the lens out and then pop out the little board that held the LEDs. We then used a soldering iron to remove all of the LEDs from the board and solder 1.5″ wire leads onto them, which we then soldered back into the board. We then popped the board back into the flashlight and epoxied the whole mechanism onto the end of a piece of PVC pipe, We had our first prototype:

We headed down to Smuirfield one evening to try it out and…found a major design flaw. The PVC pipe we used was too small to fit over the framework that held the flag in place. But, we confirmed that it was plenty bright for the task.

Back in the workshop, we grabbed a piece of PVC with a larger diameter (“What’s with all the PVC lying around your workshop?” you might ask. They’re remnants of our past experimentation with making a marshmallow shooter using spud gun principles). We drilled six holes in the PVC for screws that would hold the flashlight in place (this was Benton’s idea; he couldn’t remember where he got it, but then he saw our Christmas tree stand today and suddenly said, “That’s it! That’s what I was thinking of!” It’s basically two sets of three screws that are all pointing inward to hold the flashlight in place). Another set of holes around the top were drilled for the LEDs.

We put the whole assembly together, and it looked pretty good:

I even convinced Benton to model the finished product (it sits straighter when there’s an actual flag on the top of the flagstick):

We took it down to try it out, and it works great! Plenty bright, the flagstick is used to turn the light on (the pushbutton for the flashlight is up inside the tube). Overall, it’s pretty slick. We need to make at least one more to improve the speed of the game, but we’ve talked about making three or four, as well as tracking down colored LEDs for different ones so that we could play the “red” hole or the “white” hole or the “green” hole (Benton actually experimented with coloring and painting a white LED, but the results were mixed at best). Benton will be a master solderer by spring!

Carson and I wandered down to Smuirfield on Saturday afternoon to play a round of golf. I, of course, brought along my camera! Carson did a masterful job of extricating himself from a bunker:

There are certainly worse ways to kill an hour on a crisp fall day!

A little guy who posed for me

The Smuirfield Golf “Club”
(site of many a daytime and nighttime pitching outing)

Walking/Bike Path Nearby

Halloween Is in the Air

12th Hole at (the real) Muirfield Village Golf Course

Early on — while the pizza was still being consumed — Chris got out the electric remote controlled car that he used to race when he lived in Connecticut, and Benton rigged up a makeshift ramp for it in the road.

After the first jump, Bill decided to add some “thrill” to the experience by putting himself (partially) in the flight path. After the car easily cleared him, he talked his daughter into extending the feat…

…and then, talked his son into extending the jump even farther!

Oh, the adrenalin!