My Personal Normal

This week the PGA Tour is playing just outside Tucson, Arizona with Accenture Match Play Championship. It's one of my favorite tournaments of the year because it is so unique. Rather than the traditional 144 guys going out and playing the same holes for four rounds and seeing who has the lowest score, this week the field of 64 is paired up like the NCAA Tournament and the players have to knock each other out one at a time. It's definitely a nice change of pace from the rest of the year, though given how few times the best players actually make it to the finals I'm sure the PGA Tour is happy they only do it once a year. Since this tournament has such an unusual format, I guess it is only fitting that it also has the most unusual weather. As I mentioned, they are outside Tucson, which is about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Now, I know Mother Nature has decided to use this particular winter to remind us just how cold it should be between December and March, but I don't think anyone was expecting it to start snowing during this tournament. They certainly didn't expect it to keep snowing, especially not to the point where there was accumulating snow on the ground, forcing the cancellation of the first day of play.

The pros themselves seemed to take it rather well - making snowmen next to the greens, tweeting out tons of 'golf ball in the pile of snow' pictures and throwing snowballs at the reporters trying to give their studio updates. Some of them were marveling because this was the first time they had even seen snow. Sure, the fact that they are a bunch of well-compensated golfers probably helped lighten the mood, but I also think it has to do with the fact that then knew this would just be a temporary setback. Don't believe all the hype you may have heard about this story, like when they said it was blizzard conditions at the course and I don't think they ever got that bad. The residents of this area were just reminded what a blizzard looks like and that wasn't it. The course found itself under three or four inches of slushy snow it was not prepared for, but that is about two feet less than what you expect to find during a blizzard, so consider this New England resident unimpressed. Not to mention most of the snow had melted away by the following morning which, as we certainly know around here, doesn't happen with actual blizzards. (Certain parts of my deck still have two feet of snow on it.) This storm was an inconvenience and an anomaly, but not the sign of the apocalypse some media members were portraying it to be.

Still, it did remind me of just how hilarious it can be when an area gets (non-life-threatening) weather it is woefully unprepared for. I've found that traditionally warm places have the worst time adjusting to extreme cold as compared to people who live in colder areas who have to deal with a heatwave. I assume it is because it is easier to get cold than warm yourself back up. Still, this is the desert. The only thing I know about the desert is that for as hot as it gets during the day, it is freezing at night, so you would think they would pack for both temperatures just in case they wanted to go out after the round. But that was not the case. For example, half the caddies were wearing shorts. Also, the pro shop ran out of ski hats before 10 AM. But the most unprepared people appeared to be the ones who were trying to shovel the snow with any flat surface they could find. It was like no one ever told them any object, but especially snow, will get harder to push the more of it builds up in front of a flat surface. This is why plows are angled and shovels are curved. I can understand being somewhat unprepared for snow in Arizona, but it is not like they've never seen a shovel before. They watch Christmas movies out there, don't they?

I guess I shouldn't judge too harshly just because I see snow all the time and thus it is totally normal to me. I'm sure there are plenty of things out in Arizona which would cause me to freak out but wouldn't phase someone who has lived in the state for their entire lives in the slightest. For example, scorpions. As near as I can tell people who live in Arizona treat scorpions like you and I treat ants, whereas I would be on the first plane back to Massachusetts the first time a scorpion came into my house. Also, haboobs. While I would be concerned at the thought of a giant wall of dust coming my way, the typical Tucson resident knows just to move the picnic inside and shut the windows. (I have to say - I've always wondered about the people who originally settled Arizona. Who hacked their way through the wilderness, saw all that sand and was like, "Yeah, here's good.") Basically, everyone has their own version of normal and it can vary wildly from one place to another, so we shouldn't judge the people who live in an area unless we have spent time there ourselves. That being said, it's February - put on some long pants.