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Most fun wins

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Daniel Phelps
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. --  This past Friday morning, I met out at the Carolina Skies golf course with several other Team Shaw members for the Viper Challenge golf tournament. Now by no means am I a great golfer, but I do enjoy playing.

The challenge allowed people to get out of the office, mingle with those they don't work with and have great time getting their mind off the normal work day.

I know for me personally, it was a nice break to get out and revitalize my mind.

The Viper Challenge was a competition between units at Shaw Air Force Base, sponsored by the 20th Force Support Squadron, competing in several events to see which unit was the best. There were a total of about 25 different events ranging from archery and kick ball to a one mile run and leg wrestling.

All events were open for military personnel, family members, civilian employees and their spouses.

The competition for the golf portion of the challenge was made up of teams of four from various units.

Two team members would play the first nine holes and the other two would play the back nine. By playing the best ball on each stroke for the score, the two sections of each team would add together their scores for the team score.

Airman 1st Class Amber Jacobs and I were paired off for the back nine holes, starting at hole 14 with two members from another team. On my first hole, I teed off and swung, completely missing the ball and hitting the ground. I just played it off and pretended it was a practice swing by taking a few more practice swings.

I eventually connected with ball and sent it sailing about two feet past the women's tee off area. Fortunately, since we were playing best ball, my teammate was able to get it a little further down the way, only landing it in the rough.

The people on the team we were playing with for our set were far more experience golfers. They stepped up, teed off and hit the ball 200 yards down the fairway and waited for us to catch up.

Several strokes later, we managed to catch up to where they were. The whole time my teammate and I were laughing and cracking jokes at each other's expense about how bad we were and loving every minute of it.

I'm not entirely sure how the people we were playing with and against took it, but we were having a great time. They may not have been happy with having to wait for through all of our sand traps, water traps and getting stuck in brush, but they were beating us at the very least.

Even though I am sure my team came in dead last place, I had a great time in a friendly competition and enjoyed a beautiful, chilly October day in South Carolina.

I finished with my mind refreshed and energized to return to my everyday work excited and ready to go.

The moral of this: most fun wins!