Pebble Beach 2007

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Have you come back to earth yet?

Speaking for myself, the answer is NO!

I thought I'd give everyone a little something to tide you over until we can get our detail reports posted.

Hope you all don't think this is too big, but isn't it beautiful ....

[timfan]

WOW Dreamer that is fantastic!

Glenn sure is a great guy!!

[Freypower]

Awwwww!

[Perfect Little Sister]

Ahh, Dreamer...the plane landed, but you haven't. How propitious that you had him sign that song, eh? :P

[freyfanatic]

That's awesome

[Brooke]

I'm sorry about your pic, Soda! But what a great time you all had!

Love your autograph, too, dreamer! Thanks for sharing!

[glenneaglesfan]

Kay, I wonder if you'll ever come back to earth! That autograph is so cool - I love that song and that photo.

[EasyFeeling]

Speaking for myself, the answer is NO!

I thought I'd give everyone a little something to tide you over until we can get our detail reports posted.

Hope you all don't think this is too big, but isn't it beautiful ....

This IS beautiful. You must be so proud of that autograph.

[Witchy Mummy]

Thanks for sharing the autograph with us, dreamer! It's gorgeous

[sodascouts]

PLS, Dreamer's and soda's Excellent Pebble Beach Adventure 2007, Day One: The WHOLE shebang

The build-up

I had debated a long time about whether or not to return to Pebble Beach this year. I had gotten my autograph, after all, and Glenn had been really sweet to me, but what would he think when he saw us coming again this year? Would he be glad to see us, annoyed to see us, or terrified to see us? Finally, after hemming and hawing, I decided to do it. After all, I told myself, I had a plane credit that had to be used by May. I did not have a photograph with Glenn. Here was my chance!

All those justifications did not comfort me as we drove up to the Pebble Beach parking, however. Nerves were making me nauseous to the point where I would almost have felt relief if the thing had been rained out (ALMOST). Luckily, while the weather was gray, it was better than we’d initially thought. It was cold and windy, but after last year, PLS and I expected no less than a deep freeze on that course. It actually was warmer than it was last year, although only slightly. There was no real rain during the day, just occasional spatters. The ground was still moist from the rain of the prior day and evening, and on the muddy trek from the bus to the main Spyglass course, I was growing more and more nervous with each squishy step.

We’d arrived a bit late, but since Glenn’s tee time was after 10:00, we knew he couldn’t have gotten too far. We strode onto the course, scanning the groups for that figure we all know so well. And there he was, still on the first hole, dressed in dark colors. He wore charcoal gray pants that fit loosely and a navy blue long-sleeved shirt. He looked thinner than I’d seen him recently in photos. A black baseball cap rested atop hair that was just long enough to curl at the back of his neck, light brown with strands of gray. He was also sporting a bit of stubble.

Glenn was playing with pro Kevin Stadler, and his team was paired with pro Jeff Overton and country-western singer Clay Walker again. I actually spotted Clay before I spotted Glenn simply because as I looked over, Clay was wiggling his butt in preparation for a shot (I guess he does it to get his balance or something). “That’s Walker’s Wiggle,” I thought, and sure enough, when I looked a little further, I spotted Glenn.

Meeting and Greeting

We walked up as Glenn’s team was finishing up the first hole. In fact, by the time we made our way over, the team was already on their “royal processional” to the second hole. Once we caught up, he waved and smiled. Dreamer and PLS smiled and waved back, but I grimaced in embarrassment, then giggled nervously and looked down. I could feel myself becoming a dork again and had to fight the urge to hide. Thankfully, I was relatively successful in containing my dorkitude this trip. I didn’t hide once!

As soon as the group teed off, Glenn came over to shake our hands. The first thing he said was “Thanks for coming out. How are you doing?" I tried to joke "Cold" as a reference to last year, but I think he took me literally (this was to be the pattern for my deadpan humor over the next three days. He would always take it literally.) My hand met his with the boundary rope in between, causing it to jiggle along with my nerves. He moved down to PLS and asked her the same thing. “Warmer,” said PLS as he shook her hand. He commented with a grin, “Right clothes this time.” Finally, he turned to Dreamer, held out his hand to shake hers and said, “Hi, I’m Glenn.” She cried “I know!” and then shook his hand. I whispered, “Tell him your name,” and she called out, “I’m Kay!” As he moved away to continue play, she added, “So nice to meet you!” We’re a polite bunch.

Psycho fandom revealed

On the 6th hole, Glenn came over to talk to us as we walked down the fairway. He asked, “So, where are you girls from?” I paused, contemplated the wisdom of telling him that I’d flown in from Indiana just to see him play, and replied “SHE’S from Livermore,” indicating PLS. (At this point I also realized that he had not received my gushy fan letter, to my immense relief.)

He smiled. “Where are you staying? Or are you commuting?” We replied that we were commuting. PLS told him that it was only about a two hour drive. This seemed to ring a bell with him. “That’s right, Livermore. Are you the girls who know Fred Pike?” I answered, “No, those were the other people.” I added wryly, “However, I do enjoy looking at Fred Pike’s products on Ebay.” Glenn looked puzzled. “Products? What are you talking about?” “Well, he has some great yearbooks for sale,” I grinned. “And essays...”

At this point dreamer chimed in. “Do you remember writing a paper in sixth or seventh grade?” Finally it dawned on Glenn what we meant. “What – he’s selling essays by me?” At this point a voice inside my head was telling me to shut up about buying his stuff off of Ebay, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself as I answered, “Yes, but she outbid me on that one.”

“Hmm, maybe we should put a stop to that,” Glenn said, glancing over at his caddy. I attempted to make up for my faux pas with some self-deprecating humor. “Now you know the kind of psycho fans we are,” I tried to joke, laughing nervously. He was a bit ahead of me, though, and I don’t think he heard me – which was probably just as well at that point.

Dreamer told him he could have the essay back if he wanted it. He grimaced. “I hate to think I peaked that early.” As he and dreamer were talking, my mouth was also running. I repeated what I’d told him last year. “I got Longbranch Pennywhistle off of Ebay.” As a result, I thought the “peaked” comment was directed at me, so I piped up, “You didn’t peak then! It’s best to start low and then go high!” Dreamer simultaneously said “I think you peaked later than that.” PLS was shaking her head vigorously at the “peaked” comment: “No, no!” Obviously, with three huge fans and just one Glenn Frey, conversational chaos reigned.

Then he changed the subject and started talking about an old classmate of his who had made a fortune as a founder of Horizon. I had never heard of that, so I repeated confusedly, “Verizon?” I figured he meant the phone company, and I thought, ‘Wow, he really must be rich, too bad Verizon sucks as a cell provider. I won’t mention that to Glenn, though.’ It’s a good thing I didn’t, as Glenn then went on to say that Horizon was a company that sold organic milk.

After he moved away, I thought, ‘Now that he knows just how extreme we are, he’ll never come back over here again!’ In fact, when Dreamer asked me, “Do you think that’s it?” I replied, “Probably.” Thankfully, I was wrong about that!

It’s not polite to point.

At the 7th, Glenn had taken his shot and had moved towards the rope where we were as the others took their turns. He was holding a golf ball in his hand and held it up, looking at it in what seemed to be a speculative manner. He then scanned the crowd. I thought, ‘Maybe he wants to give that golf ball to somebody!’ I knew Dreamer wanted one. I caught his eye and pointed at her. He looked confused, then went to take another shot. Afterwards, he came back over, fumbling in his pocket. “Why were you pointing?” He asked me. I realized then that he had never intended to give away that golf ball. “Um... no reason... but Kay wants to ask you something!” I shoved her forward, figuring if she then asked him for an autograph, it would take the attention off of me. At that point, though, he got three picks out of his pocket to give us. He dumped them into her hand – “There’s three picks for you.” After saying this, he rather abruptly walked away. In my paranoia, I once again decided I had put him off by pointing at Dreamer. Just call me “Neurotic Nancy.”

We still manage to make fools of ourselves.

On the 9th, Glenn hit his ball wide and came out in the crowd to hit it back in. We stood back, gripping our picks happily, and blessing our good fortune. After he took his shot, he looked right at us and motioned ‘come here.’ with his hand. Our hearts began to race. Was Glenn indicating he wanted us to come over to him? We stood frozen in shock. “Who, us?” I mouthed. He motioned again with an exasperated look on his face. As one, we eagerly stepped forward – only to bump into his caddy who he was really motioning to.

OH THE MORTIFICATION!

After that hole, I realized I was still clutching my pick tightly. I opened up my hand, sighed happily, and gave it a bit of a stroke before putting it slowly away. As I looked up, he was looking over at me. Great, another “obsessive fan” moment!

We all went to lunch and tried to recover our appetites after our humiliation. To my dismay, I discovered that they did not have cheese for hot dogs OR hamburgers! Come on! I got a turkey sandwich, a Diet Coke, and a cookie (in honor of that article I posted on the site about him giving a fan his cookie to hold). That paltry amount of food cost me $14.

TIMBER!

We didn’t get back to the game until the 11th hole. As we approached, there was a loud SNAP and screams of fear. PLS looked over in the direction of the commotion and saw the remains of a big tree shaking in the strong wind. From the excited murmurings of people around us, we discovered that the tree by the 17th hole had snapped in half and its top had almost landed on a crowd of people. Luckily, everyone was able to run out of the way in time and no one was seriously injured. PLS didn’t realize this, though. When she saw the crowds move towards the tree, she had the terrible thought they were going there to assist in pulling the tree off of somebody. Turns out only one guy got his cheek scraped by a branch.

I had missed the spectacle, too focused on getting to Glenn’s tee while simultaneously chomping on my cookie and swigging my Diet Coke (and yes, I recognize that the low-fat aspect of Diet Coke is nullified when one is stuffing one's face with cookies, but a girl has to treat herself sometimes). After I heard people talking about it, I kept whispering “Where is it? Where?” Finally, PLS, turned me in the direction of the sound. I still couldn’t figure out where the broken tree was. Seems I always miss out!

Finally, we reached the hole. Glenn turned around and asked “Did you see that?” I still hadn’t, but I joined those nodding so as not to look clueless. With a wry smile on his face, he looked around and quipped, “Where’s that drink cart?” We all cracked up, including Clay, who was getting ready to hit.

A real good time

Not long after, there was some down time. Glenn was standing by a tree outside the rope. Dreamer saw this as her opportunity to get her CD signed. She walked up to him, Strange Weather CD in hand. “Can I get you to sign something for me?” “Sure,” he replied in sexy voice that left Dreamer breathless. “This is a real good time.”

Dreamer responded in her best Blanche Dubois sexy Southern drawl, “I thought so. I didn’t want to bother you when you were concentrating.” He smiled and started to sign the CD booklet, which had been strategically folded to the “Part of Me, Part of You” lyric page (Dreamer can’t stand the cover art of that CD. I had advised her earlier not to mention that, lol). “What’s your name again?” he asked her. She told him and, as he signed, added, “I love this album – you really should play some of the songs on it at your solo shows.” Sadly for the hardcore fans, his response wasn’t very promising. He made a face that indicated he wasn’t planning on doing that any time soon.

Holy crap! Holy frickin’ crap!

It was the 17th hole when the big event happened. The hole was backed up because the team ahead of Glenn’s was still playing and hadn’t cleared the fairway. Glenn was standing on the far side of the tee. We were in our usual place, hovering next to the rope. PLS caught his eye and made a writing motion while mouthing “Will you sign something?” He mouthed “Sure” and nodded his head. He came over and did that, then stayed to chat.

As he signed, I said “Can I ask you a question about golf?” While I hated revealing my ignorance, I was curious and I figured it was probably something no one else around Pebble Beach would need to ask. “Why is it that you sometimes pick up the ball instead of continuing to hit it until it goes in to the hole?” He told me that he did that when he’d “played out” by reaching par and could no longer help his team. I was still a little uncertain as to how that worked, but I didn’t inquire further as I wanted to maintain the illusion that I at least had half a clue. PLS illuminated me on the way that the pro-am scoring worked later.

But instead of being down about the fact that he had “played out” more times than he’d have liked to this round, he brought up the tree falling and said that it put everything into perspective. He told us that it made him realize it didn’t matter how far over par he was. He was alive and well, and that’s what’s important. In that vein, he added, “Good thing nobody was hurt.” PLS took the opportunity to joke, “If I had been standing under that tree when it fell, I would have had to change my...” she paused and decided against her original word choice of ‘underwear.’ “...jeans.” Dreamer grimaced playfully. “Too much information!” she cried. PLS shrugged. “Hey, I have a teenage daughter, no subject is taboo at our house.” Glenn apparently didn’t follow. “Huh? Taboo?” PLS explained, “I mean that no subject is off limits. She can ask any question she wants.” He said “Oh” and nodded. We wondered if he could even hear us over the wind, but then he asked how old PLS’ daughter was. (She’s 14).

It was at that point that he noticed a young girl by the rope who was probably about 11. He walked over to her and handed her a pick. We thought he would probably head back over to his partners then, but instead he came back to us. We chatted a bit more, and he thanked us for coming out again. Then he leaned in towards PLS and to our amazement, he planted a kiss on her cheek! She was stunned, but recovered herself enough to give him a quick peck on the cheek back before he pulled away. He turned towards me, smiling, but his grin was nothing compared to the ear-to-ear smile I had plastered across my face as I saw him leaning in. “I gotta get me one of those!” I tried to joke, attempting to play it off as no big deal, but that pretense was shot as soon as those lips came into contact with my cheek! Unlike PLS, I did not have the presence of mind to return the kiss. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me. And yes, I’m kicking myself. He went on to dreamer and not only did she give him a kiss back, she gave him a half-hug!

We could barely contain ourselves, and after he turned his back to look down the fairway and check the progress of the team ahead, I made a fanning motion with my hand. I wasn’t kidding, folks. I really did need to fan myself. My cheeks were flushed and my heart was pounding. We all silently squee-ed, but then we noticed Glenn looking out of the corner of his eye at us. I didn’t think I could blush hotter, but I did when I realized he was noticing our freak-out. He turned back around, feeling the need to tell the swooning girls that his kiss was completely platonic (the sad thing is, we knew that – and we STILL were swooning). “You know, I can’t complain,” he told us. “Life is good. I have a great wife, a great family; I’m 2-and-O with colon surgery....” PLS chimed in, “I’m 2-and-O for heart surgery! We have the same odds!” He laughed. “Oh really! Well, the sun will be up tomorrow.” Dreamer said, “Obviously you haven’t seen the weather report!” He smiled philosophically and replied, “Yeah, but either way, it’ll come up.”

When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go.

At the end of play, he was walking along the path to the exit and met us walking along the path to Cloud Nine. When he saw us, he smiled. I chirped, “I’m in a REALLY good mood now!” with my massive grin still in place. He called out “Have a safe commute!” as he moved away.

At this point my 20-oz Diet Coke was catching up to me. Dreamer, PLS, and I headed toward the port-a-potties, despite the fact that we knew they would be wretchedly disgusting at the end of the day. As we approached, we saw Glenn going into the port-a-potty area also! “Great,” I complained to Dreamer and PLS. “If he sees us coming in there now, he’ll probably think we’re stalking him into a frickin’ port-a-potty.” But when you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go – a sentiment I imagine Glenn shared, as nothing less could induce him to go into that sty of filth. As soon as we entered the port-a-potty area, I hustled to the nearest stall before Glenn could see me. I won’t go into any more detail about what those things were like, but let’s just say Glenn got a good chance to experience the worst of how the other half lives!

An event not likely to be repeated

Leaving that day, we were all holding our cheeks, sighing, and thinking how lucky we were that the stars had aligned just right that day for us. We had never expected that to happen and I doubt it will ever happen again. I guess you can just call us Misses Lucky.