Putting the zip back in my old golf swing and my old Corvette.
By freelance golf and travel writer Tom Cattermole
Cattermole@telus.net
2009 was a long hard winter for both my 1981 Corvette, bought three years ago from Corvette Specialties and my golf game. I putted out at the Sandpiper G&CC (www.sandpipergolf.com) in mid December 2008 feeling like I have felt all year that my game was crap but the next round would be the one that turns it around. The next day I dropped the Corvette off for some minor work. I didn’t see a golf course or my Corvette until the beginning of February because of snow. The snow started to fall the day I dropped off my car and weeks of snow on the golf courses and snow on the road meant a long winter for me.
Eventually winter eased up and I dedicated myself back to golf. I didn’t have a worry about the car so golf took up all my time. I went to see one of British Columbia’s best teachers and one of Canada’s hottest pros Bryn Parry who works out of the Seymour Creek Golf Center (www.seymourcreekgolf.com) here in North Vancouver. Five weeks later Bryn had me drawing the ball againand all in time for my first tournament of the year in April at the Osoyoos G&C.C. The newly found swing didn’t take in time for this event but by July I had all the pieces together and it was time for the 9 hour drive to Golden B.C. for the Golden Men’s Amateur at the Golden G&CC. Normally on this trip I leave North Vancouver, gas up in Kamloops and spend the night in Sicamose. This time, after Corvette Specialties installed a new intake manifold and a MSD ignition system to go along with my headers and aftermarket camshaft (and of course a set of mufflers that lets everyone know I am not driving your father’s Chevrolet) I did not have to gas up in Kamloops. In fact I got all the way to Revelstoke on one tank. That meant my old 350 got 637 kilometers to a single tank. When the car was stock, complete with those quite sounding pipes, and had only 190 horsepower I got 500-530 kilometers per tank on the highway and that meant never leaving the slow lane. Now, being honest, I take extreme measures to get the extra mileage but I am not afraid to bury the pedal when the urge strikes me. This work also got me about 70 horsepower.
The Golden Golf &CC (www.goldengolfclub.com) is one of the most scenic and well laid out 18 golf courses in BC. If you’re a golfer who likes a road trip I highly recommend driving through the Kootenays to Golden. This year’s amateur event was my third and I opened up with a tidy 81. The next morning winter was knocking at the door. It had snowed just an hour down the road and in Golden it was just a touch above freezing and raining which added up to me shooting a stinky 89 which had me racing for home. But I should have waited around for later that afternoon the rain kicked into high gear and the temperature dropped even more and the leaders blew up. I landed up coming in fourth overall which was my best finish in years. Two weeks later I went to the Christina Lake Championship Golf course for their men’s amateur.
It was in Grand Forks, on my way home from Christina Lake that my Corvette started knocking as I accelerated and my top speed was limited to 100 kilometers per hour. Still I got all the way home on one tank and when I rolled into Corvette Specialties parking lot a few days later I had 597 kilometers on my trip gauge, not a record but still impressive. Not bad I thought, just get rid of the hesitation and I will be fine. Three days later, after talking to Bruce Iggulden at Corvette Specialties, I hung up the phone and started to compose a ‘Car for sale’ add. My old 81, with almost two hundred thousand kilometers on it, was done. The cam shaft had rounded out and worst of all two of its cylinders had a compression rating of under 120 pounds. I had two choices, sell it at a big loss or spend the dollars and get the engine rebuilt. My wife didn’t like taking the loss and I hated to think that some punk teenager would buy my baby, paint some half naked girl on the hood and street race it until it dropped. So the decision was made, we would rebuild. Knowing this was going to cost us I kissed off any more out of town trips this summer and the fantastic gas mileage I was getting. But lucky for me I was wrong on both counts. With a rebuilt 355 under the hood and, 60 extra horsepower, and a new clutch and my wife’s blessing I picked the car up July 25th and immediately headed off to Osoyoos for some more golf. For the first two hours of the drive up I was a wreck. I must have checked my gauges a million times, and every time I heard a noise my skin froze with fear. My worries were for not. I babied it for the drive up, which was difficult to do because the car felt so powerful, so renewed and down right sexy.
I drive to and through Osoyoos 4 times a year and have been doing so for years and every trip is the same. I have plenty of gas to get to Osoyoos with enough to do all the local driving I want. Then, before I leave, I fill up in Osoyoos knowing the next gas station is 50 kilometers away and my needle would already be below empty. This time I had just under a quarter of a tank when I prepared to leave. So I decided to get down to Keramious (50 k away) and fill up there. As I rolled through Keramious, with my needle still on the good side of empty, I set my sights on Princeton another 66 kilometers away. Trying this on one tank, and with a new but untested motor, was a little scary but again I had no need to be scared. I pulled into Princeton with 587 kilometers on my trip gauge and gas still in the tank. Hum “Hope is only 90 minutes away. Maybe?” Nope, no towns or gas stations and no cell phone service, I had better gas up here. I put in half tank and on the way home I let her loose. I passed (using a passing lane) a line of campers and used this opportunity to see what she can do. As my Speedo flew around the bottom I heard John Glen saying “Seven G’s and I feel fine.” And I offer no apologies to the owner of that nice looking Trans Am., yes you looked like Burt Reynolds in that stupid hat but you shouldn’t have tried to pass me in the wrong lane. And as for the finger you gave me? If I didn’t have good eyes I never would have seen it…in my rearview mirror. Even with these fun bursts of speed the half a tank I put in while I was in Princeton was plenty to get home on. In fact I drove 330 kilometers on that half a tank of gas. I guess horsepower and fuel economy can go hand in hand. My next big trip is to Revelstoke in September then on to Osoyoos from there. Bruce and I are wondering if I can hit 700 kilometers on one tank.
