25 Years of The Florida Championship, Part 1

(Starts Sunday, January 13, 2019)

This January marks
My twenty-fifth year
Reporting the Florida Championship

What fun it has been
To carouse with like-minded men
Their dogs and their horses
And the Chinquapin quail

For a week in January
I have lived life free
Of the cares and the worries
Of the ordinary

In the Big House with Ted
And T Jack and Howard
Skip and Tom Kennard
John Milton and Murph
And occasionally Chester

A Bloody for breakfast
Another at lunch
Then at day’s end red wine
While we rerun the courses
As Howard and Ted fix the grub

A leg of lamb
Or several of chicken
With rice and Crowder peas
Those eternal staples

We sit down at the table
Hold hands and say grace
Thanks for the bounty, each other, and this place
Then we turn to teasing the judges

Stories are told
And yes they are old
And repeated a bit
But that’s only fit

We hear of Old Ranger
And of trips to Dixie
Where out on the morning course
Ted and Murph encountered
George Evans leading the gallery

“What the hell are you boys
Doing here?” George asks
His dentures clacking
“Just trying to catch up with you sir”
Says Ted while Murph nods agreement

And we hear of Bill Rayl
Losing Evolution in the Continental
And asking scout-brother Albert Earl
“Where was you lookin’
When he got away?”

To which Albert Earl answers truthfully
And Bill rejoins, “That’s where I was a lookin’
Don’t you be a lookin’ where I’m a lookin’”
And that line’s repeated all week

Then there is the tale
Of a night in Corinth
Before a dog of Ted and T Jack’s
Was to run in the National

That story will not be told here
Suffice it to say it involves
Uncomfortable confinement

We rise before dawn
Howard has the coffee brewed
Eggs in the blender
Sausage and bacon sizzling

To the barn at seven
Fire roars in the clubhouse
The officials’ horses wait tacked up
By the Chinquapin staff

At quarter to eight
We ride to the start
On the west side of 247
And gather at the pipeline

Some days ground fog makes us wait
Some it’s clear as a bell
For a gallery of fifty
Riding horses feeling frisky

Judges are introduced
Slade says a prayer
Asking for safety
Judges nod let ‘em go

Two pointers hit the cover
Reach for the front
Scouts ride right and left
Handlers ride up the pipe line

Chances are at least two finds
Will come in the opening minutes
Before at 20 we cross the road
And go north into piney woods

Forty minutes the first brace hunts
With constant chances to point wild coveys
So it goes on every course
Five braces morning four after lunch

There is no other trial ground
With such even chances
On courses groomed by fire and blade
And gold plated with shelled corn

So it goes til all have run
Then the judges announce a top qualifier
And call the finalists
And things get serious

To be continued