The Jimmy V Golf Tournament is held at the Prestonwood Country Club in Cary, NC, a club that contains three separate golf courses, each with their own name (The Fairways, The Meadows and The Highlands), and therefore 36 separate holes, with a giant clubhouse that is literally surrounded by three 1st holes, and three 18th holes. As near as I can calculate, this year there were approximately 213 players, divided into 42 teams of 5 players each and a 43rd team of three. Most of the teams consisted of one celebrity (although a couple of teams had to double up with two), mainly from the sports and entertainment industries, and 4 sponsors. The sponsor players were people who had paid or in most cases, whose company or firm had paid for them to be there, with of course what they paid going to the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research - in other words, the tournament's beneficiary. So what the tournament ultimately netted was a combination of what the sponsors paid and what was collected by way of ticket sales to spectators ($10 per ticket), plus sales at concession stands.

Todd, by the way, functioned this year in a dual capacity, as not only did he volunteer his time as a celebrity player, he also was an official sponsor, one of the very few private individuals who were. Sponsors were ranked Diamond, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Copper. The first four categories consisted of corporate sponsors exclusively. The Copper category consisted of 17 sponsors, with only four of those being private individuals. Todd was one of those four individuals. And, I discovered, the person who was able to participate as a result of Todd's sponsorship was Andrew, Richard's son-in-law! Andrew was not on Todd's team, however, as Todd thought it might be more fun for Andrew if he got to play on the team of another celebrity (so Andrew ended up on the team of Jay Bilas of ESPN fame).

Also, a number of corporations and businesses were listed as hole or tee sponsors and these entities as a result were set up in tents, usually one per tee, where they could advertise whatever it was they were selling.

Anyway, the teams all played Captain's Choice, rather than having individual combined scores, with the result that you had one score per team calculated on the basis of par. Todd's team ultimately finished 8 under par, an excellent result but not the winning one. I have no idea which celebrity's team finally won.

The Tournament began with a shotgun start at 9:30 am, with each team starting at one of the 36 holes (although there had to be a doubling up at 7 of the holes in order to accommodate the extra seven teams), with play proceeding until all teams had completed the 18 holes of their assigned course.

The Todd Squad (AKA Spiral Edge Inc.) at this event consisted of Hoo, Betsy, Kellie, Jo-Ann and yours truly, and after a slight detour courtesy of a shuttle bus driver who got lost en route, we arrived at the scene and managed to get to the 15th hole of The Fairways Course (Todd's assigned 1st hole) with a bit of time to spare to catch our collective breaths (it was a bit of a hike from where the shuttle bus dropped us off to where we had to be). On arrival, we were amused to see that the tent set up at this, Todd's first tee, was that set up by Hooters of America and decorated by a bunch of Hooters ladies (you can imagine what they looked like and how they were dressed) and thus it was that Todd and his team began their game with "I [heart] Hooters" stickers plastered on their shirts . When Todd and his four team members finally pulled up to the tee in three golf carts, they were duly greeted and decorated by the Hooters ladies and play was underway. Todd did wave and grin at us when they first arrived, and then greeted us verbally once he'd teed off.

And thus began our trek around the course, up hill and down dale in the wake of Todd and his team. It was at least 93 degrees out, with the relief of only the occasional cloud cover, but on the whole we were rather lucky weather-wise. The previous two days the temperature had been in the 100s, breaking records in the area (the players had had a practice round the previous day and Todd told us the heat had been awful), and the day following it poured down rain for much of the morning. We all came equipped with water in coolers and when that ran out, Todd gave us some from the cooler on his golf cart (volunteers came by in carts throughout the day to make sure the players were kept stocked with water, soda, etc. as well as ice). We also found the ice in Todd's cooler to be a life saver on a couple of occasions, especially later in the day. Indeed, by that time Todd himself was far from being the reason we kept hanging around his cart .

Todd really had a fun group of fellow players - lots of laughs and joking all the way around. The "character" of the group was without doubt Vencie, the former professional football player who was a huge Tiger Woods fan (evidenced by his tiger head golf club cover) and also probably the best golfer on Todd's team (other than Todd himself of course). Vencie provided quite a bit of the humor during the game as well as what I consider to have been *the* quote of the day - after Vencie had a pretty good drive off of one tee and then Todd had a better one, as they got back in their carts to go after their balls, Vencie remarked "I'm never going to fess up to being outdriven by a figure skater!" Todd laughed heartily without the slightest sign of remorse . In addition to being the team clown, Vencie proved to be an extremely kind man, offering us water, handing over his first aid kit when one of us needed a bit of first aid, and continually asking how we were doing. Although he did offer his opinion that he thought we were all nuts for following a group of golfers around the links on foot in 93 degree heat (an opinion we've all heard before, of course ).

Todd played fairly well throughout the day, enough to impress his fellow players (after the first tee off Vencie remarked proudly "He's on *my* team!"), but not as well as he would have liked (it's not surprising of course that Todd would be as much a perfectionist as a golfer as he is as a skater). He said this summer he hasn't managed to spend nearly as much time playing as he'd have liked. However, he looked relaxed and happy and was obviously having a great time. Of course he spent the obligatory amount of time teasing us .

It took over four hours for the game to play itself out and when we finally reached The Fairway's 14th hole (our 18th hole of play) we were variously exhausted, bruised, sunburnt, blistered and generally spent, but still on our feet. Todd was able to spend a bit of time with us at that point before heading off to the Million Dollar Shoot Out, at which time Hoo presented him with the Birthday certificate, featuring the names of those who contributed to the Spiral Edge birthday donation to Scott Cares and who wished to be listed by name.

After Todd was driven off into the sunset (figuratively speaking, as the sun was still aways off from setting ) on his golf cart, his band of followers parted ways, with Hoo and Betsy starting their journeys homeward while Kellie, Jo-Ann and I decided to wander on over to the Million Dollar Hole-in-One Shoot-out.

Following conclusion of the game, Kellie, Jo-Ann and I decided to wander on over to the Million Dollar Hole-in-One Shoot-out. We might have thought twice about this idea had we realized how far it really was from the 14th hole of The Fairways (where we said goodbye to Todd) and the 18th hole of The Meadows (where the Shoot-Out was scheduled to take place) but ignorance is often bliss and after about 30 minutes of trudging along we finally made it there - with time to spare, as it turned out. The event couldn't start until all the games were over and not surprisingly, since the teams on The Highlands course were greater in number than the teams on the other two courses, that group still wasn't finished until some time after we'd arrived at the site of the Shoot-out.

The Shoot-out, by the way, is where a selected number of celebrities (25 were chosen this year) try to shoot a hole-in-one and if anyone succeeds some sponsor or other (I didn't learn which or exactly how this works) donates one-million dollars to the Jimmy V Foundation. I don't know what happens if no one succeeds, but since to my knowledge no one ever has succeeded in doing this - this year or in previous years - I imagine some kind of extra donation is made anyway. The actual shoot-out was preceded by a couple of other games, specifically a trivia contest for spectators and a putting contest involving some of the other players (sponsors and celebrities).

Most of the spectators positioned themselves near the hole, but we found ourselves seats on the bleachers right next to the tee - since that was the best position from which to see the celebrities up close and personal. Good thing we did, too, since Todd turned out to be one of the 25 celebrities chosen to participate in the Shoot-out. It also gave us the opportunity to see quite a few other celebrities - which sticking strictly to following Todd around the links as we did would otherwise have kept us from seeing. Thus we got to see Charles Barkley, Meat Loaf, a couple of soap opera actors (my two companions were especially thrilled to see Cameron Mathison from All My Children), the actor Gregory Harrison and a bunch of football and hockey players, etc - all of whom participated in the shoot-out with Todd (James McDaniel - formerly of NYPD Blue walked by us, although he didn't participate in the Shoot-out). At some point before the shoot-out began I ran into Crissy Callaghan (Richard's daughter) and hubby Andrew, and during a brief visit with them learned of Todd's role as a tournament sponsor.

In due course the celebrities arrived for their attempts. Todd was one of the last ones to shoot and was introduced not only by his major titles but also as a huge friend of the Jimmy V. We of course cheered lustily when he was introduced. Unfortunately what resulted was not one of his better drives and the announcer, trying to interject a bit of levity into the situation, said "Well, the French judge liked it." We don't know if that remark made Todd wince inwardly (wouldn't be surprised if it did although outwardly he laughed politely) but it sure did us. While no one made the hole-in-one, if I'm not mistaken I do believe the person who came the closest was, of all people, Meat Loaf. Afterward, Todd came over to visit with us for a bit and when we finally parted ways, he thanked us once again for having come.

While Todd headed back to the clubhouse for the closing banquet, we headed off in search of the a shuttle bus to take us back to the parking lot and our car. Another long trek. By that time it was about 5:30 pm. It had been a long, long day, but we all agreed it had been well worth it.

All in all, I'm sure everyone would agree that a good time was had by all.

Fran