The rest of our time in Florida will be spent watching Millie and her team from University of West Florida. The tournament, hosted by Flagler College, is being held at the King and Bear GC (another very famous course with 9 holes having been designed by Arnold Palmer (The King) and the other 9 by Jack Niklaus (Golden Bear) and so on the Saturday we did a dummy run to see how long it would take us to do the drive and it was an easy 1/2 hour drive north west of where we were staying.
The team had a practice round on Sunday and for the first few holes the weather was perfect, but around the 5th it started to rain quite heavily and although we had umbrellas with us (bought in Walmart especially due to the forecast) we decided we'd head for the clubhouse and wait for the girls to come round, by which time it might have eased off a bit. It had almost stopped raining by the time the team headed for the 10th and so we set off to follow them. As we walked across the buggy park the chap in charge (Buggy Man?) offered us a cart for the afternoon free of charge. He said the rain had driven all his customers away and so we may as well make use of it - we were incredibly grateful for such a kind gesture, especially as we had more torrential rain during the afternoon and despite holding the brolly sideways we still got a little wet.
Fortunately the weather for the next two days was good, if a little chilly in the early mornings. Two rounds were played on Monday which was quite tough going for us (16.3 kms) but it was great to see that Millie had retained her good form despite the long winter break between matches.
Setting off for the last round on Tuesday we found ourselves very leg weary and footsore but Millie was playing awesome golf and so we quickly forgot about our aches and pains and were just thrilled to be witnessing -4 under after 5 holes - just unbelievable!! She finished the round 1 under and came 5th overall in the competition which was superb.
The team had a long 6+ hour drive back to Pensacola and were heading straight off as soon as their round finished but Millie was able spend about 10 mins before she left and we could bung her some $$$ in lieu of taking her to dinner and give her the Apple Airtag we'd bought for her golf clubs.
We were heading back home the next day too and so after lunch we went back to the little house to pack. I forgot to mention the railway line; after accepting the changed accommodation I read on various reviews that it was near a railway line and the train noise could be bothersome. At Lake Beresford we'd been near the same line (much further south of course) and had heard trains hooting in the distance from time to time. But here we were only two roads away from the line and the noise was unreal, we didn't hear them during the day but at night very long freight trains - 150 carriages/2 miles in length rumbled their way along, sounding their warning hoots at every crossing (they're all unmanned and without barriers).
Early Wednesday morning it started to rain and the forecast was for it to continue all day. The driveway in front of the house was built rather curiously with a dipped bit in the middle and quite quickly this started to fill up with rainwater. I decided to go and turn the car around and park it nearer the house on the grass otherwise I feared we'd be barefoot and rolling up our trouser legs by the time we came to load the suitcases. The weather did improve slightly and the journey back to the airport was uneventful and rather boring. When we got back to Avis we dropped the car off and were quickly told everything was fine (which it was, we'd had no incidences). Just as we past the Despatch Desk Ian casually produced the keys to no.2 car and announced to the young lady he'd just found them on the floor. She was very grateful and thanked him profusely.
Although the wildlife wasn't what we'd hoped for, maybe we were too early in the season or a little too far north, we had a good trip and it was lovely to see Millie playing such good golf and clearly being in a good place. Hopefully we can go again next year for what will be Millie's last semester.