Boys,
I was thinking this morning that it’s been awhile since I’ve written to you. “Why is this?” I thought to myself. Then it hit me — it’s because I’ve been spending most of my creative time focusing on creating promo videos for this year’s Rauchdy Match which I’m calling…
Rauchdy Match 5: Harder Better Faster Rauchdier
Last year, I got a bunch of videos from our friends and family making their predictions for who would win. I also made a bunch of stickers of your mom holding a trophy and saying “there’s no way I can lose, right?” Obviously it worked because I beat her (even though it was our closest match to date). I even won despite her walking out with a bagpiper playing her and Jacob to the tee. I even won despite her friend Sarah dressing up as an avatar and crawling around the golf course.
With my win last year, we’ve each won it twice, making this year the most important match either of us have ever played…..ever. So, naturally, I had to start putting some things into motion for this year’s event.
The first thing I did was send a video of your mom to our course superintendent where she was selling a house and showed how you can walk onto the golf course from their back yard. I said, “look at what she is promoting! She’s making a mockery of this establishment and no golf professional in any capacity should stand for this brazen dismissal of club rules!” He agreed and called her to tell her off and make sure her confidence was rattled.
The next thing I did was call Max, the club pro, and tell him that our golf course is being overrun by non-golfers who are disrespecting the integrity of the greens, the course, and golf itself, frankly. I mean, we have people painting themselves blue and frolicking around the golf course while some of us are out here trying to keep things civil. He obviously agreed with me 100% and sent out an email to all Kinsale members ensuring that no non-goflers could be on the golf course at any time — NO EXCEPTIONS! I even talked him into putting cameras out on the course to ensure the safety of our game is considered.
Finally, I talked to the food and bev staff and told them we needed a way to further the frustration gap between the men and women of this club. I said, “if we could offer some breakfast options, but only allow men to get these breakfast items, that would really spur their (women) frustration. I said, “make it affordable so to heighten their jealousy, and also make it sound really good, like a breakfast burrito with steak or something.” Naturally, they thought this was a fantastic idea and they hung some signs in the men’s grill for breakfast to start this summer. I could get 9 scrambled eggs for $9, too. What a deal!
Now that I’ve totally gotten in her head, I needed something to inspire me to play my best golf. I needed a north star, if you will. So I went into my own head and I said to myself, “self, what would really charge your battery? What revs your engine? How can you take your game from what it is, to what it could be?” And then it hit me…
I had a vision.
I was in sixth grade. My older friend Jake Gladyse invited me over to his friends house for a special PPV event with some of his older friends. There were so many lights. Then fireworks! Fire and explosions. Tens of thousands of people around a square ring. Warriors, giants, and heros. There was color — so much color! It was Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, and Macho Man Randy Savage. There was Sting (my guy), and Andre the Giant. I’m sure I’m mixing decades here, but the level of excitement I felt for a big match was, well, unmatched.
So I came out of that vision and I knew what I had to do. I had to do this…
Now one thing about our Rauchdy Matches is that they’ve evolved. They evolved because the original arguement not longer applies. Your mom could beat the 12 handicap version of me way back when I was a baby, but now that I’m a grown-ass 6.5 handicap, she can’t beat me from the same tees. We also started doing a champions dinner where the loser has to make food for the winner (plus guests) and we’ve also brought on caddies — Jacob and Andrew — to help make the match feel extra special.
So Andrew and I decided that we were both all in on the wrestling theme for this year’s match — there will be more on that in a later post. But I decided that making these videos would be a great way to remind your mom of my dominance, confidence, and all the other ‘-nce’s that I have when it comes to our match.
Plus, sourcing and making these videos is fun! My friend James was in TV in high school, and he said my videos bring him back to the silly videos he used to do in high school. I found this program that lets me download Youtube videos, so I can just think of a wrestler, find a funny promo video, and use this other program to put my head over the wrestler. Kinda looks like this one…
I can also use clips from matches like this…
Some are better than others. I like to send them out via Instagram so your mom and her friends A.) see my level of confidence and B.) know what’s about to happen when we tee it up later this summer. Here’s a funny one. I gravitate toward Macho Man because he had the best voice for this sort of video.
You might be able to tell that I’m not a professional video editor. But I’m also not a professional writer. I just like to do things that let me flex my creative muscle, and do things that bring me joy.
And let me tell you, nothing brings me more joy than sinking that winning putt to beat your mom one more time, letting her know that the best golfer in the house isn’t the one who has a “hole in one” (Reagan…), but the one who can look back and say, “I came, I saw, and I conquered.”
More to come, but until then…
Love you boys,
Dad
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