2024 Golf Season Review

 

 

Intrigued by that picture? Allow me to explain.

This past year, my brother and I played much of our golf early in the morning.  

 

Very early. 

 

Nine-holes-before-work early. 

 

At times it would still be dark when we got to the golf course. 

 

Now, at some point my dad learned of how early we were meeting up. And being the corny goofball that he can sometimes be (I mean that in the best way possible), he immediately bought us some novelty LED golf balls as a gag gift—a whole dozen, in fact. You see a few of those golf balls in the photo above, on the practice putting green.

And although they don't fly as far as standard golf balls (and feel like rocks when you hit them), you can actually play golf with them. One morning we did try them out for a couple of holes just before sunrise, and I have to say, it was fun seeing a little glowing orb sail through the darkness, bounce down the fairway, and come to a stop. And as you can imagine, even if we hit them off target, they were rather easy to find. Most of the time, however, we just putted around with them on the practice green until it got light enough for us to tee off.

In any case, I thought that would be a fun image to lead off this post to recap my 2024 golf season. (Note: For those of you more interested in trading cards than golf stats, feel free to skip to the bottom of the post, where I share a couple of recent golf card pickups. For those of you who like stats, read on.)

 

I'll start by mentioning that last year I used an app called Golfshot throughout the season. It not only allowed me to enter my golf scores during each round, but it also kept track of some stats and data to help me analyze my strengths and weaknesses. I found the app so insightful that I resubscribed for 2024.

One of the coolest things about using the app for a second consecutive year? I can now filter the stats in order to compare my 2023 season to my 2024 season. 

Did I improve in some categories? Regress in others?

 

Let's find out with a side-by-side comparison.

Fairways

This is an analysis of the percentage of fairways I hit from the tee. I did improve my accuracy a little bit this year, but I know I can do even better. It's interesting that similar to last year, I missed about half my fairways to the left side and half to the right side.

Greens in Regulation

A green in regulation (GIR) means that you've hit the green with at least two shots remaining to make a par. For example, on a par 4, it would mean hitting the green with your second shot. That way, you have two putts to make your par.

I improved in this metric as well, which is great. However, in the real world, a 6% increase in GIR equates to just one additional green hit per 18 holes. If I want to reach my goal of breaking 80 next year, I'll have to get this number up even higher. (36% GIR means I'm hitting about 6 or 7 greens per 18 holes. I'd like to get that up to at least 8 or 9 next year.)

Recovery

When I don't hit a green in regulation (which usually means I'm somewhat close to the green, but have to chip the ball on and try to make that first putt to save par), I was only successful 32% of the time this past year. That's a tick lower than last year. I did save more pars from bunkers around the green this year, but it's a pretty small sample size, so I'm not reading too much into that.

 

The bottom line is that I've got to do better in this category. When I'm pitching or chipping the ball onto the green, I'm just not getting the ball close enough to the hole to make saving a par easy. It's true that there are times when I'll get the ball within tap-in range. However, if I were to average out all of my chips and pitches over the course of the year, I'd guess that my ball is finishing about 10 or 12 feet from the hole. Not quite good enough.

Putting

Another improvement! The 1.89 number in 2024 means that when I hit the green in regulation this past year, I was a little more likely to finish in one putt (birdie) than three putts (bogey). A score of 2.00 would mean that I was averaging exactly two putts per GIR.

Pars

Interesting data here, and more improvement all around. I like how I've gotten the par 3 and par 4 averages down to the "point-5" mark or lower compared with 2023. That means I'm parring those holes about half the time, and bogeying them the other half. I did even better on par 5s, which is cool.

Scoring Pie Chart

The 2024 scoring pie chart confirms the statement from the previous paragraph. Overall, I'm parring about half the holes I play. The birdie percentage went up, too, while bogeys and double bogey+ numbers went down. (Next year I've got to make an eagle!)

Best score

 

 

This year I have to go with a score from a 9-hole golf course. This particular course is referred to as "executive". That means there are only par 3s and par 4s, and even the longest par 4 is fairly short (about 360 yards). Regardless, a score of 1-under 31 is something I'm super happy with. The fairways are pretty tight there, and some of the greens are rather small and hard to hit. 

That birdie on the 3rd hole was actually a chip-in from short of the green, which was great. However, the best shot of the day came on the 9th hole. I'd hit a good tee shot and was only about 110 yards from the green. Unfortunately, my next shot came up in the rough just short of the green, and my chip onto the green also wasn't great, finishing about 10 feet short of the hole. I knew I was 1-under par as I lined up that 10-footer. And I really didn't want to miss that putt. It would have meant a bogey on the very last hole to drop back to even par. As you can see by the scorecard, I rolled in the putt and saved par. I'm a pretty calm and cool guy on the golf course, but I have to admit that I did give a pretty big fist-pump when that putt dropped.

Okay, stats portion over.

To thank those of you for reading this far—and because this is a trading card blog—here are two golf cards I recently picked up in a TCDB trade.

2024 Upper Deck #35 Collin Morikawa and #94 Billy Horschel Season Highlight

 

Collin Morikawa is only 27 years old, but already has 6 PGA Tour victories to his credit, including two majors (2020 PGA Championship, 2021 British Open). Impressively, at the time of this writing, he's made 103 cuts in 122 career PGA Tour starts. And in those 122 starts, he's finished in the top ten 42 times. That's really something!

Billy Horschel is 38, and has collected 8 PGA Tour victories, along with 2 international wins. I picked up his card because he's a gamer. To explain: In the summer of 2023, Horschel was having a really tough time with his golf. He'd fallen well down in the rankings, and even broke down in tears at a press conference after a particularly rough tournament. Since then he's fought right back, gotten his physical and mental game together, and had seven top-10 finishes plus a tournament victory during the 2024 season. At the time of this writing, he sits at #18 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

 

So that's my 2024 golf season review. Overall, I improved almost every metric in 2024 compared with 2023. I'm very happy about that. And Golfshot has shown me pretty clearly where I need to make the most improvement next season.

Playing golf regularly over these past couple of years has also helped me realize a few things about keeping the mind strong and focused throughout the round. For example, a bad score on one hole does not dictate your score for the entire day. And neither does a good score on one hole. As soon as you finish that hole—whether you made a birdie or a bogey or anything else—you've got to put it behind you, settle yourself down, and get focused on the next hole. There's a lot of interesting stuff like that going on in the game of golf. Good life lessons, for sure.

 

One other thing I'm happy about is that I played golf with my brother very often again in 2024. We've been pushing each other to improve, and it's been such a cool experience. This year, our dad even made some appearances! The three of us got out there for 9 holes quite a lot, which was fun, for sure.

 

As for next season, let's list some goals:

• Hit even more greens in regulation
• Save more pars from around the green when I don't reach in regulation
• Get my golf swing a little more consistent and dialed in
• Break 80 at least once
  

 

I look forward to the season, and also to checking back on this post next winter to see how I did with my goals. Similar to the softball season recap from a few weeks ago, I think recording my golf goals here will help keep me motivated and accountable.

Thank you all for reading, and for any encouraging golf-related comments in advance of the upcoming season. 

Any golfers out there? Anyone else motivated to get out on the course or hit some golf balls at the range this coming season? Share in the comment section!

Packs at the Golf Course: I Return the Favor

Around this time last year, my brother surprised me after a round of golf with a couple of packs of hockey cards. They were both from the early 1990s, which was right around my peak hockey card–collecting time, so the nostalgia levels were high. 

 

Right then and there, I took one pack and he took another, and we opened them. Only two or three stars showed up inside, but it was still a fun experience.

Well, this is the time of year when golf season and hockey season overlap, and a few weeks ago I found myself thinking about that pack rip. I figured that the next time my brother and I played golf, I'd go into my stash of early '90s hockey packs and return the favor with a little surprise after the round.

 

When he surprised me, it was one pack of 1990-91 Upper Deck and one pack of 1992-93 Upper Deck.

 

This time, I split the difference.

That's 1991-92 Upper Deck. Many would argue it was the best hockey set of the year, far and away. And I'd agree. Just looking at those foil packs reminds me of a monthly card show back then that was held at a local Holiday Inn. My hockey buddy and I would walk over to the show, buy some packs, and then head back to my house where we'd open them and play NHL Hockey on Sega Genesis. Man, those were fun times.

 

Fast-forward more than 30 years, and let's have a look at the cards my brother and I pulled from those two packs.

First, my brother's pack.

The first card out of the pack was part of the popular Canada Cup subset, which contained quite a few notable rookies and stars. I mentioned to my brother that Mr. Garpenlov went on to have a serviceable NHL career after coming over from Sweden. He replied by saying that those uniforms definitely looked Swedish. In the middle there we have goalie Bill Ranford, who won the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy (playoff MVP) with the Oilers in 1989-90. As for Russian legend Igor Larionov, look—he's doing battle with another legendary Russian player, Sergei Fedorov! Great action shot from a pretty cool and unusual angle.

Next up we've got Rob DiMaio. Yvon Corriveau, and yet another great Russian player in Sergei Makarov. More excellent action, don't you think?

Dan Quinn was a very good hockey player (and golfer). He even played in some professional golf tournaments after finishing his hockey career. In the middle, Mr. Zalapski shows off the classic Whalers logo, and look on the right! It's a Russian legends hot pack with the addition of Alexander Mogilny! My brother actually saw the back of the Mogilny card first, and got a kick out of the subject matter, considering where we were standing at that moment:

He's on the golf course!

Last three cards of the pack: Marty McSorley was a protector for Wayne Gretzky, both in Edmonton and Los Angeles. I like how Upper Deck showed him doing what he did best on the card front. And we finish off the pack with two looks at team Canada's uniforms. Two very solid players, as well.

 

Oh, and at the back of the back, you have the NHL All-Star fan ballot insert. As you can see by the text on the front, this card takes us back to a time of 1-900 numbers. $0.95 for the first minute, $0.55 for each additional minute. Yeesh. You'd better choose your all-stars quickly.

Now here's my pack.

 

 

We started off hot with a Zigmund Palffy rookie card and a Brett Hull/Eric Lindros Canada Cup checklist. Palffy was a superstar on Long Island during my college hockey days in the late-1990s, putting up 40+ goals a year for a while there.

Nothing too memorable here, although Dave Tippett was an excellent defensive forward who had a long playing career. He coached in the NHL for more than 20 years, as well.

Adam Graves helped Bill Ranford and the Oilers (see above) win that Stanley Cup in 1989-90. He then went on to the Rangers, where he was a big part of their 1994 Stanley Cup season. Ulf Samuelsson was known to be a big hitter and rough guy. See that Stanley Cup patch on his right shoulder? He helped the Penguins to their back-to-back cups in 1990-91 and 1991-92. As for Michel Petit, I remember him playing for the Rangers when I first got into hockey around 1989 or so.

That Brett Hull insert came out of the pack with the back of the card showing. Before we started the rip, I'd told my brother that Mr. Hull had signed a small number of the cards, which were then randomly inserted into the packs. We were hoping this would be one of them, but alas, it wasn't to be. Nice Cooperalls, though. Tom Barrasso was the starting goaltender on those Cup-winning Penguins teams with Ulf Samuelsson. As for Tomas Forslund, he played just a couple of NHL seasons in Calgary before going to Europe and playing in the Swedish and German professional leagues.

Pretty good pack, overall. And instead of the All-Star fan ballot, I found this at the end of the pack:

 

One of the randomly inserted holograms! You can't go wrong with Ray Bourque, who won the Norris Trophy (top defensive player) five times during his career.

This was a pretty fun pack rip. I think my brother and I might have to make this an annual tradition—at least one pack per year, that is.

Do any of you have a pack-ripping tradition, either on your own or with family and friend collectors? What's your favorite card from the two hockey packs?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

 

Golf Season! (Softball Season!) Golf Season! (Softball Season!)

 

Remember this classic argument?

 

 

 

Well, replace those two phrases with golf season and softball season, and you'll get an idea of what's going through my mind now that it's springtime. To explain:

 

Last year I got back into golf, and had a really great time re-discovering the game and shaking a lot of rust off my own. I kept track of some informative stats across the year, and I'm motivated to improve this season.

 

But at the same time, I've enjoyed playing softball over the past five years or so. I've been keeping stats there as well, and despite the drop-off in offensive numbers last season, I'm really looking forward to the new softball season (and new team!) as well. Stay tuned for more.

 

So therein lies the conundrum. It's April. The weather is getting a little warmer. The birds are singing. The grass is green again. It's golf season. It's softball season.

It's not that I can't do both. In fact, I made time for both last year, and I will make time for both again. (If you have hobbies or activities you truly enjoy, I think you should try very hard to make time for them.)

 

The real conundrum is that last year I didn't set any goals for either sport. Now that I'm on a mission—two missions—to improve my skills, how do I split the time effectively? I think we'll have to take it week by week, but I'm determined to get things done for both sports.

 

I've already hit the links a couple of times this year. Here was the opening round.

 

 

Not bad at all, considering it was February and cold and windy. That four-hole stretch where I went birdie-par-par-birdie felt pretty great. But as you can see, I had a bunch of messy holes right after that. It happens.

 

As for softball season, that should start up in about a month or so. Time to get to work.

 

All that said, however, I can't forget that Nine Pockets is a blog about trading cards. So to tie those little cardboard rectangles that we all love into this post, here are a couple of former MLB players who became very good golfers as well.

 

 

1985 Donruss #552 Rick Rhoden and 1990 Starline Long John Silver's #34 John Smoltz

Rhoden, in particular, was an accomplished golfer. After his MLB career, he became so proficient that he even played 34 tournaments on the PGA Champions Tour (age 50 and over), with three top 10 finishes.

I've got a lot of work to do before I get anywhere close to that absurd level of skill and proficiency. (As if I ever will—hah!), but that's fine. It's good to have plenty to work on.

 

Thanks as always for following along with my sporting activities. 

 

Do any of you have plans to get out in the fresh air this spring, be it golf, softball, hiking, or anything else? Share in the comment section. And then get out there!

I've Been Released!

Okay, it's really not that dramatic. 

But a couple of weeks ago, I received a text message from my softball captain. He said that the team's regular third baseman, who'd been injured all of last season (hence the reason I was picked up in March), was healthy and ready to reclaim his role on the team. So, unless I wanted to just ride the pine or play a fill-in role, the captain suggested I look for another team to join.

Fair enough, especially considering this team has, by and large, been together for 20 years. I'm not going to mess with that dynamic. Besides, he was very complimentary about my glove skills over at third and about having me on the team, and said if they were ever short on players, he'd love to have me fill in for a game. That felt nice. 

 

In the meantime, it's back to the free agent market I go.

Because this is a trading card blog, I've tried to find a vintage baseball card with an appropriate "released" note on the front that I could share here, but haven't come up with anything. There are a couple of interesting "free agent" notes on hockey cards that I've shown on the blog, but that's as close as I've gotten. So here are some similar examples from the 1974 Topps baseball set.

Cecil Upshaw seems confused to learn that he's been traded. Fernando Gonzalez looks outright incensed. And Bob Johnson? He's just happy to be playing pro ball somewhere!

 

I think Bob Johnson's expression is the one I relate to here. I had a decent feeling my team's regular third baseman would be back at some point, so the news isn't confusing or aggravating to me. I'll definitely miss the guys. They're a good bunch. And this league really pushed me to be a better ballplayer. But I'll have to find another team now. No biggie.

 

(Also, just for fun, maybe I should have created a custom softball card with my face on it, and a big "RELEASED" note in a yellow banner.)

 

In any case, the free agent feelers have been deployed. There are two or three softball leagues that are located within 30 minutes of my home. Something is bound to come up. Who knows? Maybe I'll even join another team in the same league!

Stay tuned, and thanks as always for following along with my sports journeys.

 

If any of you have some interesting "traded" or "released" stories from your personal sports lives, feel free to share in the comment section.

2023 Golf Season Review

 

This past year I got back into golf. In fact, I enjoyed it enough early in the season to want to install a nifty little app on my phone called Golfshot. It's designed to help a golfer keep their scores and also track a number of informative stats throughout the year.

Now if the paragraph you've just read has made you groan, this post might not be for you. And that's fine. Golf isn't everyone's cup of tea. And golf stats and terminology definitely aren't everyone's cup of tea. (Feel free to scroll down to the bottom of this post to see some cool golf cards in my collection.) However, there will be some fun graphs and charts next, so if that stirs your interest, great!

 

Let's get to the data from the Golfshot app, and see what it revealed about this past season of golf.

 

 

 

This is an analysis of the percentage of fairways I hit from the tee. I could be a little better here, but the fact that my misses were about half to the left and half to the right indicates that I don't have one big swing flaw that rears its head all the time, so I'll consider that a positive.

 

 

 

 

GIR (greens in regulation) means that you've hit the green with at least two shots remaining to make a par. For example, on a par 4, it would mean hitting the green with your second shot. That way, you have two putts to make your par. The bottom line is that if I want to shoot lower scores, I've got to hit more than 30% of the greens. Doing so would give me more putts for birdie. Currently, I'm scrambling too much just to make a par.

 

 

 

 

 

When I don't hit a green in regulation (which usually means I'm near the green, but have to chip the ball on and try to make that first putt to save par), I'm only successful 33% of the time—even lower from sand traps around the green. I've got to do better here, too. Saving par from around the greens is an art form. It requires lots of feel and imagination. And even after you visualize the shot, you've got to actually pull it off. I enjoy this part of the game, so I was a little disappointed to see the low percentage here. I'm motivated to do better next season.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm pretty happy with my putting stats. The fact that I'm averaging less than 2 putts per GIR means that I'm making more one-putts (birdies) than 3-putts (bogeys). For the record, I can't stand 3-putts. You can be 175 yards away from the green and hit a beautiful shot that lands 20 feet from the hole, and then proceed to take out your putter and dink the ball 3 times from that 20-foot distance. Blechh.

 

  Anyway, back to the stats.

 

 

I've never looked at my scoring numbers this way—average score on par-3s, par-4s, and par-5s over the course of the entire year. It's really interesting. The par-5 data isn't that bad, but on the par-3s and par-4s, on average I need an extra half a shot in order to finish the hole. That's also not bad, but I think I can bring those numbers down a little bit next season.

 

 

 

 

 

I like that a majority of the pie chart consists of pars and bogeys. (As a simple example, putting up 9 pars and 9 bogeys on an 18-hole, par-72 golf course would give you a score of 81, which I'd be very happy with.) If I can bring the birdie numbers up and the bogey+ numbers down next season, I'll also be happy.

 

 

Finally, here's my best score of the season.

 

 

I had a 10-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole for a 79, but just missed it. I'm determined to break 80 next year.

 

Okay, stats portion over. 

 

If you've been reading all the way up to this point, thank you. Here are a couple of golf cards that I added to my collection recently.

 

 

1981 Donruss #2, Lee Trevino

1978 Sportscatster #38-05, Tom Watson

Tom Watson and Lee Trevino are two legends of professional golf who influenced me while I was first learning the game as a teenager. I even had a couple of instructional books written by Mr. Watson that really helped shape my game back then. Here are some stats for both players:

 

 

Tom Watson

British Open champion: 1975, 1977, 1980, 1982, 1983 

Masters champion: 1977, 1981

US Open champion: 1982

Total PGA Tour wins: 39

 

Lee Trevino

US Open champion: 1968, 1971

British Open champion: 1971, 1972

PGA champion: 1974, 1984

Total PGA Tour wins: 29

 

 

So why such a detailed post about golf?

 

Well, similar to the softball season reviews that I've done here on the blog, I'm posting this golf version so I can have a checklist to look back on next season. That way I can see if I'm improving in the areas I've resolved to improve. 

 

Another reason is that I hope some of you folks who have been thinking about getting into golf can take some encouragement from it. Golf is a great activity. You're out in the fresh air. You're with friends or family. You're challenging yourself mentally and emotionally even more than physically. You're learning life lessons. For example:

 

Accountability

There you are, on the golf course. You're on your own. The golf ball is just sitting there. All the decisions are yours to make. All the golf swings are yours to make. If you make a good decision, make a good swing, and that golf ball sails through the air and lands right where you wanted it to, you can claim that. You did it. You can feel good about it. However, if you make a poor choice or make a poor swing and your golf ball ends up in the woods or in the water, guess what? That's on you as well. You can't blame anybody or anything else. You've got to hold yourself accountable.

Handling Random Situations

With golf, sometimes you hit a good shot and get a bad bounce. Other times you hit a bad shot and get a good bounce. The sooner you learn not to allow any of that to frustrate you or cause you to lose your focus, the better. Get a good bounce? Don't feel guilty about it. Take advantage of it. Get a bad bounce? Don't get upset about it. Figure out a way to recover from it and get yourself right back on track.

Accepting the Challenge

One of the great things about golf is that you can play the same golf course 10 days in a row, and it's going to present a different challenge each time. The flagsticks might be placed in different locations on the green from one day to the next. The tee markers can be moved forward or back to a certain extent, making some holes play longer than the day before, and others play shorter. One day it might be windy. Another day it might be rainy. Another day it might be hot and sunny. It's easier to play golf under perfect conditions, of course, but when the wind is blowing, or it's cold, or you're just not playing your best, do you tell yourself there's no way you're going to shoot a good score and just mail it in? Or do you accept the challenge and push yourself? Golf is such a mental game, and if you're up for it, the whole experience can strengthen your mind, and you can carry that strength over to the real world.

 

It's really a fantastic game.

 

Okay, I've done enough talking. I hope some of you enjoyed this post. And I hope some of you will get out there on the golf course next season. If you do, let me know!

Impromptu Pack Rip at the Golf Course

I'm going to continue last week's post with a fun story: 

 

My brother—the same one I've played golf with all season—knows that I'm a card collector. He also remembers my high school and college hockey days very well, as he was of an impressionable young age back then.

 

So when he came across some dollar packs of 1990s hockey cards at a thrift shop a few weeks ago, he couldn't help but pick them up. Fast forward a few weeks, and he smartly presented them to me as a surprise, after a round of golf.

Color me impressed. And nostalgic.

You see, Those packs are from years when I myself was young and impressionable and really getting into ice hockey, and I certainly ripped my share of those exact packs during the 1990-91 and 1992-93 seasons.

Did we open them right then and there?

Yes. Yes we did. My brother took the 1990-91 pack, and I took the 1992-93 pack. Here are the results, along with a bit of commentary I shared with little bro about some of the players.

 

 

 

1992-93 Upper Deck:

 

 

My pack started out a bit bland, but Esa Tikkanen was a very important part of all those Oilers Stanley Cup teams of the 1980s. (He also helped the Rangers to their Cup in 1994.)

 

My brother and I played our share of video games back in the '90s as well, including some of the NHL games from EA Sports. Cliff Ronning, who was a solid player, don't get me wrong (306 goals and 563 assists for 869 points in 1,137 games played), appeared in one of the early versions of the NHL video games with an absurdly high skill set—way too high for him. The reason? Ronning was a schoolmate with the man who went on to found EA Sports. So, one old friend helped out another. And hundreds of thousands of kids probably selected the Vancouver Canucks as their video game team that year as a result.

 

 

 

 

Pierre Turgeon had some monster years for the Islanders, which coincided with my high school hockey days in New York. Back then I took guitar lessons for a while, and when my instructor told me that he had also started to give lessons to Mr. Turgeon, I couldn't believe it. I remember asking if he'd bring one of my Pierre Turgeon hockey cards to a lesson for an autograph, but he politely declined. And I totally get it now.

 

 

No personal stories with these three guys. Teppo was an excellent player (and that might be Wayne Gretzky behind him). The other two gents didn't play much at all in the NHL.

 

One of my hockey teammates called Scott Lachance "Scott LaGroin" because the poor guy seemed to be plagued by injuries for a couple of years there.

 

And that's that. Not much of a pack, overall. Lots of good, nicely cropped action shots, however. The only stars were Turgeon and Hasek.

 

 

Now my brother's pack, 1990-91 Upper Deck: 

 

 

 

A Felix Potvin rookie card, right out of the gate! Team Canada won the World Juniors that year. The roster included some pretty big future stars, like Eric Lindros and Scott Niedermayer. As for Ulf Dahlen and his North Stars uniform, my brother specifically commented on how cool it was. He was pretty young when the team moved to Dallas, but he's still well aware of those Minnesota uniforms all these years later.

 

 

 

 

Based on that glare, I don't think too many people messed with Mario Marois. And look, there's Theo Fleury on a horizontal card, about to score a goal at the All-Star game.

 

 

 

 

My brother was amused by the hockey-player-in-a-tuxedo card, but Brett Hull racked up the awards in the early '90s, so it's no surprise.

 

Contrary to what many hockey fans seem to think, I actually like the style of Maple Leafs jersey that Wendel Clark is sporting here. As for the Winnipeg Jets team checklist featuring Thomas Steen, my brother appreciated the fancy '90s artwork. 

 

Welp, no big rookies like Sergei Fedorov or Pavel Bure, but the Felix Potvin card was a solid pull, and the best one in the pack. Add in a couple of All-Star cards, a Brett Hull award winner card, and Wendel Clark, and I think my brother won that fairly lackluster pack battle.

 

Regardless, it was a fun rip. At first I wondered if it was the first time anyone had ever opened up a couple of packs of hockey cards on the golf course, but then I figured that no, it probably happens in Canada all the time. Heck, instead of playing for $5 a hole, there are probably some Canadian folks who play for a pack of hockey cards per hole. If not, maybe next season my brother and I will start that tradition. 

 

How about you readers? What's the most interesting place you've ever opened a pack of trading cards?