How Small Is This World Really

Next Thursday Cousin Lauren Doughtie will be in the first group to tee off at the Women's U S Open Golf Championships at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs Colorado. She very well might be the first player to hit a ball in the tournament. She qualified by tying for first in her sectional in Pinehurst three weeks ago.  Since then the Futures tour had a tournament last week and one going on this week in which Lauren decided to pass up in order to practice for the OPEN.

So far in seven events this year on the Futures Tour Lauren has had pay checks totalling a tad more than $3,600.  If Next Thursday and Friday she can muster two of the best rounds of her life and just make the cut she will make more than she has in now two years on the Futures tour.  Teeing off at 7.00am there is no way we will get to see her on TV unless she shoots one of those rounds that when TV does start they show her high lights.

This is her second US Open as she qualified in 2008 as a rising senior at N C State.  That year she played a practice round with Annika Sorenstam.  It is the dream of every player whether it is golf, football baseball basketball you name the sport and every athlete has been in the back yard living out that dream of making the final putt to win the open or make the winning basket.  Lauren's  golf career as a pro has just hit the two year mark as she turned pro after graduating from State in 2009.  I think everyone in the family right now dreams just to see her play well and earn a few dollars to keep her alive on the Futures Tour.  But wouldn't it be something just to see her hit a few shots on TV on that final Sunday.

Lauren's  Cousin Brooks has been in Colorado Springs since Monday getting his first view of what it is like coaching world class athletes.  He is at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Two Cousins who have completely different jobs find themselves down the street from each other 1,800 miles from home.

Brooks told me something very interesting tonight about why runners train in the mountains of Colorado.  You see at 10,000 feet above sea level when runners train at that height their red blood cells contract  and as they get in condition to run at that height and then they go run a race say in New York City which is at sea level their  blood vessels expand and they can perform about 8% better. You hear all the time about basketball teams that play in elevation the opposite occurs and those teams from sea level are not  use  to the elevation and their capacity is worse.

One wanting to hit a  little ball three and a half miles  and take 70 shots or less to do it. The other wanting to learn what drives premiere athletes.  What do they have within themselves that make  the top long distance runners in the country.  As a coach of one sport trying to learn what it takes to make a person great in their sport, wouldn't it be something  that if Brooks finds what he is looking for that it could in turn help Lauren find hers.

I will not blog again until after the Legion game Sunday night as Post 58 opens the 2011 playoffs at home against New  Bern.  Game time is 7.00pm