Ken Venturi Golf Clinic

For the past two years ATR International has supported BASHOF (Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame) which is an organization who recognizes Bay Area Athletes as well as supports children who want to play sports. Monday was the BASHOF Golf Classic at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. This event is always something I look forward to because it is so much fun, you meet amazing retired Bay Area athletes, and play golf on an amazing course. Ken Venturi grew up in the Bay Area and we are blessed to have him host a golf clinic, which ATR International has sponsored for the past two years, and I have been fortunate to meet him a few times and sit at his table after the round and talk/take some pictures with him. He is really nice and so approachable.

I invited my coach Kris and my big sis Sandy to come out and play with us. Sandy and Kris are such great golfers I wasn’t sure how I would fare, and how much I would contribute to the group. It was play your own ball format and the two best balls counted. The conditions were not too bad, except that the greens were in pretty bad shape. I think the Olympic Club is trying to convert their greens, so they were not well taken care of and it was hard to now exactly what they would do. Sometimes they were fast and sometimes they were slow, and it didn’t help when you had to put over a big diseased patch. Nonetheless, we had an awesome time and dinner is always a great show. Last year I had the pleasure of sitting next to Gene Upshaw and since he passed away not long ago there was a nice tribute to him before dinner. After the tribute and the nice dinner they gave away the prizes for the day and I ended up winning longest drive for the women on the Ocean course! I won a $100 gift certificate to a restaurant in San Francisco. But, I must say I just edged out my big sis Sandy, and Kris who most certainly would have beaten me and the longest drive for the men, but she ended up in the rough, so it didn’t count. Basically I got lucky. :) After the prizes the auction started, which is really fun. We won our tickets to The Master last year from this event (Ken Venturi Donated them) and my dad was very eager once again to bid on them. This year they added some extra perks to the package, such as special passes to the CBS Lunch Booth, and some time with Jim Nantz of CBS Sports. The bidding was really exciting this year. For whatever reason last year BASHOF had to almost beg people to bid on the tickets for some reason, but this year it was almost a bidding war, which made things really exciting. In the end we got really lucky and my dad ended up winning the tickets. I am one of the luckiest people in the world and I can’t wait to go to The Master with my family again to experience one of sport’s most elite events. I will of course post as much as I can from August as I did last year.

The rest of the night was great fun and I can’t wait to do it again next year. Next up...18 Hole Ladies Halloween Tournament.