It was a beautiful morning for golf, with sunny, cool, picture-perfect weather. It was the right time and the right group of people to pioneer a new social activity for our community. Ten of my neighbors teed off at a local course this morning, in an outing designed to be more about having fun than competing.

Here is the group, minus Shirley, who took the picture.

If anyone deserved to be pictured, it is Shirley, who came up with the idea for the outing and organized it. She was assisted by her husband, Glenn, and by Steve, our multi-talented field project assistant and community golf pro.

To keep the event relatively noncompetitive, final scores were not considered in awarding prizes. Those were for individual holes, for example, closest to the pin, longest putt, and longest drive. Roy won the most holes, four. Here he is showing his prize-winning form.

When they finished, they returned to our clubhouse for some post-golf stories and beverages and recognitions.

Finally, Jan had a surprise up her sleeve. She awarded the Maples Cup to Steve in recognition of everything he does for our community. Here is the winner with his trophy.

These happy golfers plan to continue the new tradition with a bigger and even better outing next year. That gives our non-golfing neighbors 12 months to take lessons and get up to speed. As for me, I have dibs on driving the beverage cart next year.