golf – From Ryan to Reagan and Koen

On Golf Is

Boys,

Golf is a lot of things to our family. Golf is the first thing I heard about your mom when someone who was setting us up told me her family had a golf course they played league night at once a week. Golf is the thing that bonded us, since the test to her was whether or not we could play 18 holes together. Golf is all your mom knew growing up, and golf is at the heart of the best stories and experiences of her younger life.

Golf is not something that I was born into. Golf is not the first sport I fell in love with, and if you ask your grandma what my favorite sport would become when I grew up, golf is not something she’d have put at the top of that list. But golf is something I found that was all mine.

But just as golf is something that grows on you over the years, golf is something that grows inside of you as well. Golf is something that used to be boiled down to a score, a result, or a handicap number we use to compare ourselves to others. When you’re young, golf is a test of your character and a teacher of patience, persistence, and humility. But dig deeper, and golf is magical. Golf is spiritual. Golf is communal.

Golf is a collection of moments and memories that will live with you forever. Golf is a time machine. I’ve forgotten a lot about being young, but I can tell you about the 3-wood I hit into the green of the fifth hole that set up my first eagle at Kyber Run when I was a freshman in high school. I asked your grandpa to marry your mom on a golf course, and before he let me ask the question, all the while knowing what I was going to ask him, he asked me if I brought my clubs and if I wanted to play (I did, but I also had to go pick out a ring since I was playing hookie from work that day to surprise your mom).

Golf is what brought us to our house. Since your mom grew up on a golf course, her dream was to give you boys a life where you would too. Now, I doubt you can steal hot dogs and candy bars from the grill like your mom did growing up, but at least you’ll have access to golf and the driving range whenever you want it. We actually joined Kinsale briefly when Reagan was a newborn. I remember sitting in the grill room, seeing two kids roll up to the bar, order milkshakes on their parent’s account, and take off. I think I saw the dream that day, and I hope you two get to do that with your friends as you grow up.

Golf is connection and a preservation to nature. Golf is travel, a link to the past, and a window into the future. Golf is equal parts maddening, joyous, easy, the hardest thing in the world, meaningful, meaningless, and everything in between. Golf is the excitement of playing you boys in a scramble in ten years and the memory of playing your grandparents in one ten years ago. Golf is the dream of seeing your children grow up and learn the game that means so much to me.

Golf is funny. If you play it long enough, you’ll probably hear some of the funniest things from the most unlikely people. You’ll probably have a near-death experience with a friend who isn’t very good and shanks one off the hosel of his sand wedge right at your head. It will miss buy it’s something you’ll remember every time you see him. Golf is playing with two old guys, both named Jerry, and gut-laughing with your best friend about having played a round with the Jerry-atrics.

Golf is an escape. No matter what you have going on outside of golf, be it school, work, a fight with a girlfriend or spouse, when you stand over a shot, that is all there is. That shot into that green is the only thing that matters. Golf is not going to make your problems go away, but golf is going to remind you that it’s OK to exhale and take time away for yourself every so often.

Getting to play Streamsong with your mom, grandpa, and uncle Jeff

Golf is that one shot, when everything comes together and your hands release at just the right time, then watching the ball rocket away from you just like you imagined. Once you feel that feeling for the first time, you will never be able to get it out of your head.

Golf is not something that everyone loves, and if you two decide you have other interests or passions, your mom and I will support and encourage you to do whatever it is that you love. But as you grow, golf is going to be something you’ll be around a lot, hear your mom and I talk about a lot, so you might as well just buy in and accept the fact that golf is just going to be a big part of who you are as well, for better or for worse.

Love you both.

Dad

On The #RauchdyRecap

Boys,

Yesterday, your mom and I finished The Match. I’d like to think you’ll read these as I’ve written them, just one per day, so you can follow along at the same pace things came together for this. It started as just a conversation, turned into an argument (albeit, a playful one), and led to a mini-event in the neighborhood.

I’m sure you want to know who won, so I want to provide you with a recap of how the actual match played out.

But first, let me take you into my mindset. The day started with normal pleasantries. My champion mindset knew that by keeping it low key, I could get into the mind of my opponent — chess not checkers. I knew the round didn’t begin at 5:10 as our tee time might have suggested, no… that was just when the golf started.

As I settled into my day, I kept stringing her along with texts like, “how’s your day going? Check this thing out or can you believe what so-and-so said/did/wore earlier?” Just straight mental games NONSTOP.

By the time we actually got to the course, I was living rent free in her head and she had no idea what was happening. Up was down and left was right. But you probably are curious how that translated to the results of the match.

…which is important. But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, at least according to my master plan. First of all, I wore the blue and black striped shirt she HATES to work that day. I was going to keep that on for the match, but made a last-minute decision to wear something fresh.

Strike one.

We then get to the course, and “ANDY” tells me we have to “ride in the same cart” because there was an “event there earlier” and carts were “a little scarce. Sorry.” Guh. Like, the nerve, you know? So your mom and I had to share a cart, which WAS NOT in my masterplan. This totally changed the dynamics, totally worked to her advantage since she loves me so much and I couldn’t isolate her both mentally and physically on the course.

Strike two.

Then, the tee opens up a few minutes early and we get to tee off at 5:05 instead of 5:10. Could the universe be any more against me? I mean, come on!

Strike three. You’re out.

But that didn’t stop me from watching your mom hit a decent-shot-I-guess-if-fairways-are-good-kinda-shot, then blowing it by her to the right rough, exactly where I wanted to be. A green, two-putt, and par saw me take the lead by one going into the second hole.

I followed that up with another monster, this time 51 yards or so past your mom down the second fairway. Your mom was so shook, she topped her approach and left it 30 yards or so from the green. I felt like Tyson who could have put her away with a first round KO, but I wanted to cat-and-mouse her for a bit, so I put mine in the water. Despite the (obvious to everyone) gift, I still came out one shot ahead of her on the 2nd hole. Two up through two holes.

So who won? I think we all won. The community at large got to see something they thought was, dare I say, impossible? The notoriety Kinsale probably got from the windfall of this whole event probably earned them millions in future earnings. I’m sure they’ll comp our membership this next year as a “thank you” for that. And I think you both won for having the kind of ~~dad~~ parents that are so awesome at golf.

But, I guess if you “counted strokes,” you would find that your mom hit a few less than I did. I guess her 200-yard tee shot on #4 over a bunker and to about 20 feet was fine. And that the four shots she hit on #6 to make par were kind of pure. Maybe being up one going into the last hole and grinding out a par could be considered ultra-clutch, especially when a few shots didn’t come out the way she wanted.

They say history books are written by winners. So until you show me her blog about who the real winner of The Match was, you tell me who won The Match? The one who hit fewer shots, or the one who captured the hearts, minds, and imaginations of a community, brought people together both digitally and in person, and sent shockwaves through the golfing world from just a tiny corner of Powell.

Until next year… Love,

Dad

On The #RauchdyMatch Part 2 of 3

Boys,

This will be the second of three posts on this. You might be saying to yourselves, “Dad, you’ve never written three posts on anything in our lives. At best, you might have written two blogs on milestone moments or important life lessons.” To that I’d say, “yeah, well. It is what it is, isn’t it?”

Officially “not” presented by Capital One

There have been some developments since posting this yesterday… We have set a date for what I’m calling “The Match” or “#RauchdyMatch” for the socials. I’ve asked that Kinsale update the tee sheet to reflect this and also requested a GGID so the world can follow along. Just got confirmation that those two things are happening so now things got a little spicier.

In addition, I’ve asked one of the pros at Kinsale to officiate the match. If there was more time, I’d rope off the course so that the gallery is contained and try to find a cart kid to follow behind us with one of those big PGA signs that shows what the score is at all times. Would probably sign a ball for him once ~~the match~~ The Match is over.

I also posted a poll on my Instagram asking the golfing world who would win between us given the parameters previously laid out. Now, I don’t have a huge following, but I want to say the results were about 80/20 that your mom would beat me. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Now, there were a good amount of “non-golfers” who voted for your mom, so I want to throw those out due to blind allegiance, but there would still be a majority of people who know both our games that think I’m going to lose. Maybe I’m delusional, but we’ll find out by tomorrow.

So the final post in this series will be a recap. Good, bad, or divorce, we are going to figure this out once and for all — or at least until we do this again next year. Not sure what I think the best case scenario would be for us — would a tie settle anything? If we’re being honest, I think one of us would handle defeat better than the other, so maybe that would be best case scenario. But I also think that we both have nothing and everything to lose no matter the outcome. If I win, it’s like “of course you did, there is a reason even the best women play from the up tees.” If she wins, it’s like “of course she did, she’s the club champion.” I think to the outside world, that is how it will be viewed. But to our family, there might be more to the story than what meets the eye.

I’ll finish this post by saying one more thing. No matter the outcome, this is your mom’s fault. I may have run with it once the genie was taken out of the bottle, but I would have been fine leaving sleeping dogs lying and let each of our imaginations comfort one another with what our version of how things would go would be. But your mom is competitive and I love that about her. I just hope that if things don’t fall her way, well, we’ll leave it at that.

Love,

Dad

On Golf, Marriage, and the Biggest Game of All Time

Boys,

As you probably know by now, your mom and I both love golf. We love to compete. We love to play together and to compete against each other, too. And, we usually do so with love, respect, and mostly positive banter during a round. In fact, we even played yesterday, both played well, and had a great time playing together.

Then, something happened that changed the foundation of our marriage…. forever. I don’t know how it came out, but the question was “who would win a round of golf (stroke play) if we both played from the blue/men’s tees?”

There are a lot of things your mom and I are happy to brush off our shoulders. Who is the better driver? You think you? That’s fine, respectfully agree to disagree and let’s talk about what’s for dinner. No follow up needed. But when it comes to golf, very few things can be mentioned and not follow up on, discussed, dissected, argued, presented in opposing hypotheticals, and used as jab-fodder the following day/week/forever.

Style and Power

If your mom and I both played 9 holes from the same blue tee box, who would win? Here’s a sneak peak at how this conversation went last night.

Her: I am 100% certain that I would beat you if we both played the blue tees.
Me:
Her: What? What? Why do you have that stupid look on your face?
Me:
Her: There is no way you’d beat me. Ryan Rauch. I’m a better golfer than you are.
Me: I agree. You are a better golfer than me. I JUST THINK that the yardage difference between the red and blue tees is greater than the difference in skill between us. I agree you’re the better golfer.
Her: Ryan Rauch. No. You’re so stupid. I am ONE-HUN-DUH-RED percent sure I would win and it’s not even close.
Me:
Her: Oh it’s happening. This has to happen. What do we have going on tomorrow? This is happening.

You can see from that direct quote how aggressively I handled that. By the time you’re reading this, you might have parents living in different houses. Your honor, there were simply irreconcilable differences — one simply couldn’t live with the other after those 9 holes!

Not saying it’s the best swing, but it works well enough!

Let’s lay out the stats:

Who:	Ryan	Kelly
Handicap	12.9 (plays from blues)	7.0 (plays from reds)
Most recent score	40 (blue tees)	37 (red tees)
Driver Distance	Bombs	Bombs minus 50 yards

Now let me be clear. (At this time) I would never say that I am the superior golfer. Your mom is much more consistent than I am. She hits more fairways and greens. I think I have a better short game than her and I don’t think either of us are great putters (I’m probably better on long putts but she’s more consistent on short putts).

So where do we go from here? Well, a match must be played. And, I feel this should be an annual match to account for improvement and the current status of the power hierarchy in our marriage. Naturally, whoever wins controls that dynamic of the relationship (should there continue to be a relationship once a winner is declared). I think this match should be played toward the end of each season as the “final major” of our golf seasons.

Lastly, just know that your mom and I love you both very much. If you grow up never remembering the two of us ever talking to each other, now you know why. My hope is that we play the match, we both play well, and that your mom realizes that there are more important things in life than beating her husband in golf.

Love, Dad