G'Day Mate (part 1)

So this is how it happened. 

As you know, we bought a house in a great community that also happens to be hosting the Valero Texas Open golf tournament for the first time this week.  The neighborhood is in a buzz, traffic is heavy, and excitement is in the air.  The tournament officially started today, but the craziness has been going on all week.

All that doesn't really matter, but this does......

As I was walking out the door to get the girls from school Tuesday afternoon, I sat down to check my e-mail one last time and noticed that an urgent e-mail blast was just received from the company that runs our homeowner association.  This is what it said.....

"Young PGA TOUR Player and his caddy are in need of 2 rooms starting today, through the duration of the Valero Texas Open. If there is a Cibolo Canyons family who is willing to open up their home and host this player and his caddy, please contact Susan ASAP at 999-999-9999 for more details."

After a quick call to Travie at work, and a "duh" response from him, we we're the official volunteers.  The next step was to wait on PGA to call with the details and within a matter of minutes, I got the scoop.  Andre Stolz and his caddy needed accommodations for that night and the remainder of the week.  The PGA lady felt like it might be through Friday if he didn't make the cut for the weekend tournament, or if he got really lucky, it could have been through Sunday.  She said that she would pass our contact info on to the caddy and from that point on, we would deal solely with them.  Deal.

This is were panic set in and where I had to call Travis home and bribe the girls with money to help me pull this off.  This is where I should tell you that I have been using my guestroom for the last few weeks as a holding area for a big Goodwill trip.  Not pretty.  We were cleaning fools and the girls were so excited.  At this point, we didn't know if they would be here in 30 minutes or 6 hours.  We were hoping for somewhere in between.  We got it together, ordered pizza, ate quickly, all while waiting for the phone call to give directions and determine when they would be arriving.

The phone call came at about 6:00pm, exactly at the same time that I took the last bite of pizza. The caddy, David, who would would later learn was really the agent, but would also be the caddy for the week, reported that they had just finished a practice round and would be over in a few minutes.  I will also tell you that between the manic cleaning and eating dinner, we had already read all of the research that could be found on the internet.  These people were strangers no more.  We know where the lived, how many kids they had.....we knew it all.  We also found out that Andre wasn't exactly a "young" player as the original email stated.  In fact, he had just turned 40 on Monday.  I seriously contemplated having a birthday cake here for him when he arrived.  Would that have been a little creepy?

So, within a few minutes, they are here.  We greeted them, offered them a drink, and then ended up in our living room visiting and getting caught up on what they had been through in the previous several days.  In a nutshell, Andre, who we quickly learned still lives in Sydney, Australia, was in the states for another PGA tournament in Greenville, SC this week.  Apparently, he received a call sometime Monday while he was at that course in SC practicing stating that he needed to come to San Antonio because he was rapidly moving up to the number one alternate spot.  Thus the explanation as to why they didn't have any accommodations for their stay.  About 30 minutes after arriving, we learned that they had not had dinner and we're getting a little hungry.  Very tired from the days travel and golf, they did not want to go to a restaurant, but insisted that they go up the street and grab a burger or something.  As my wheels were turning about what I could serve these two, sweet Travie offers them our left over pizza from our dinner just minutes earlier.  They couldn't have been happier.  Warmed up pizza for our house guests would be the perfect meal.

To be continued.....