And the Winner Is.... Me

My church's silent auction dinner tonight went much better than expected. My expectations were to make around $800 to go toward mission trip. At best I thought we might clear $1000. When it was all said and done we pulled in $1199 and everyone seemed to have a really good time. But having our most successful fundraiser ever isn't the only thing I'm excited about.

Our crown jewel of the auction was two 7-day passes to the Crown Plaza Invitational at the Colonial Country Club. This, of course, is a leg of the PGA tour featuring some of the top golfers in the world. Last years winner Phil Mickelson will be back again this year to defend in what will likely be an exciting tournament. The listed value on the tickets was $360, but I knew they would sell for much lower than that, giving someone a great value. I hoped they would sell for as little as $150 which is the most my mom was willing to spend on them. But when I glanced at the auction sheet in the middle of the night and saw it was already up to $160,I couldn't help but be a little disappointed. After I called the close of the auction, the sheets were collected and brought to me to read off the winners for each price. "Winner of 4 passes to Rave Theaters... Winner of 2 fun family packs at Putt-Putt... Winner of a $25 gift certificate to Mexican Inn..." and so on and so forth. Obviously I would wait until the end to announce the winner of the Colonial tickets, building as much suspense as I could. In fact my plan was to read all of them, except the Colonial tickets and fake as if that was it and I was trying to secretly steal the 7-day passes. But when it came time for my little rouse, I glanced down to see who the winner really was, and I was completely caught off guard by the name I saw. "Carol Howton - $210" I proudly read off the winning name and followed with an enthusiastic, "Thank you mom!"

So now I am the proud owner of two 7-day passes to a PGA event. Of course the main event is Thursday - Sunday, but there is something going on everyday starting Monday, May 25th. Monday and Wednesday both feature a pro-am event, Tuesday is reserved for the pros to practice (which should offer some uncrowded picture taking opportunities), and then Thursday begins the Tournament proper. Initially I thought I would be giving away half of my passes, but as I think about it, this definitely seems worth it to take off work for an entire week. I can easily see myself hanging out for 12 hours a day being a golf groupie... but now the question becomes, which golfer am I going to follow and obsess over?