At the onset of our adventure Clay is probably the only one of us who actually knows what a bogey is. Bogey - A chiefly British: an average golfer’s score used as a standard for a particular hole or course B: one stroke over par on a hole in golf. I always knew that bogey was a golf term but given my experience with golfing it is no surprise that I have heard this term used referring to an enemy aircraft in video games more often than not.

Surprised being the first to arrive, I wander around the parking lot looking for any of the other team member’s cars.

“Hey! Get out of the road,” I hear as Clay pulls up. He steps out of the car laughing. “Where is everyone?”

“I’m not sure but the Google Maps directions I got were bogus. Maybe they got lost,” I reply.

Not being one to just stand around, Clay leads me into the building to check out the pro shop and find out what the rental fees are. We wander around for a few minutes before Isabel shows up, irritated.

Seems she had the same problem I did. “That sucked! The directions I got were SO wrong,” she exclaims as Mauricio pulls up.

He whips out his batting gloves, smiles and says, “So who are we waiting on? Tod? Korey? Let’s hit some balls while we wait!”

We talk to the lady behind the counter, purchase our batting tokens and passes for mini golf and wander over to the batting cages where Mauricio nervously steps into the 70 mph cage.

“Oh, man. This is going to be tough,” he says after the first ball whizzes by his bat. Several more swings and several more misses as you can hear the ball cutting through the air. He finally makes contact on a couple sending them foul.

As Mauricio was finishing, Korey comes running up with his putter. “Sorry I’m late. Did I miss anything?”

Clay, Isabel and I took our swings at lower speeds before moving over to the mini golf.

Walking up to the first hole Clay is reading the score card. “‘You are about to play the most challenging putting course in the country.’ Wow, now that is a bold statement.” We begin looking around and realize that it may be bold but not necessarily untrue. Between the rock traps and water hazards at every other bend in the course it definitely seems a challenge.

“I wonder who will be the first to drop one into the water,” I think out loud as Isabel steps up to putt.

We all make it through the first hole pretty well with the exception of Korey. “Man, I’m just not good at this!”

On the second hole I overshoot my putt right into the stream. Everyone laughs as Isabel rushes to rescue my ball before it travels further down the course.

Clay, who always begins with a good distance putt, struggles with the shorter putts. His next few short putts just glance the edge of the cup only to shoot out in another direction so often it became dubbed as being “clayed.”

Korey, pulling off some surprisingly good shots, kept improving with every hole. “Guess I just needed to warm up.”

After the front nine I had a surprising lead only to watch it disappear to some skilled putting by Mauricio, most notable on the final hole of the course. Everyone takes their first putt doing well with Mauricio just smacking it awkwardly so it doesn’t go very far.

Having the best beginning put on 18 I decide to goad him a bit. “Hey, Mauricio! What ‘chu gonna do now?!” I taunt him as he lines up to putt.

He swings, the ball bounces off the wall, up the hill, around the corner and smacks my ball with enough force to knock it around the bend and down the hill — much to everyone’s amusement and setting him up for an easy putt. “Ha! I couldn’t have done that if I was trying to!”

Everyone laughing, myself mock-grumbling, we finish the course with Mauricio emerging victorious.

“I’m hungry,” says a very chilly Isabel. “Let’s go get Mexican!”

With the idea of some spicy food and margaritas warming our thoughts, we jump in our cars and leave Bogey’s knowing we’ll be back in warmer weather.