Date: Saturday, May 25, 2013
Dress code: Golf Dandies
Region: Rochester
Player Count: 8 / 10

The first round of the 2013 International Tour de Fuque saw Fuck Mountain descend upon two courses Northwest of Rochester. Starting at Adventure Landing, in Greece, the rules were tested, alliances formed and quickly broken, and a sun-dappled, dandy afternoon of golf was had by all. Between courses, refreshments were enjoyed along Hot Dog Row (at Don’s Original or was it Vic & Irv’s?), before progressing to the second course.

Ginger Pleach and Murrrray joined the competition for the second half, as players putted their way through Whispering Pines in Irondequoit: the oldest, continually-running miniature golf course in the United States. As darkness descended, balls were hit, “No Bag”s were worn, and a group photo was taken by teenage employees who were trying to close for the night. Final scores were totaled and the competitors drank away their penalties at Marge’s Lakeside Inn, bringing the first round to its only logical conclusion: public drunkenness with tiki torches.

The first video of the Tour de Fuque was surprisingly the easiest… because I didn’t make as big a production out of it as I did the next five. The footage was a mix of shots from both my Nikon D5100 and my iPhone 5 (almost all the other Rounds were exclusively done with my Nikon), and the text, logos, and motion graphics were bare-bones affairs. The script-y tour logo was created for this video’s title card, and I originally intended to change it for every round.

I decided to use music from The Legend of Bagger Vance and — after seeing the shot of Anna against the fence— thought a brief, silly, “told in flashback” intro would be fun. My Great-Aunt Nea had avoided all my previous video projects, but she agreed to do this one, and enjoyed playing dress up with parts of Anna’s outfit, while Adam and I coached her through her lines. She found the word “Buenos” impossible to say, so her version of Anna’s tour name was “Dos Brainos” instead. Upon seeing the final video she described the whole thing as “cute” but “nuts.”

I also went back to Adventure Landing to shoot more “landscape” shots, and the next day Molly, Anna, Adam and I all got together to speak-sing “The No Bag” for the end credit Tour-version of “Chihuahua.” The auto-song-recognition — and muting of the original YouTube video — by that artist’s record company is what led to the Tour videos moving to Vimeo, instead.

The video premiered online on May 29, 2013, just four days after we played the round. That seems completely insane to me, as it’s now been two-and-a-half years and I’ve only completed two more of the six (planned) videos in that time. May-Matt was apparently one heckuva fast worker. Also May-Matt wisely didn’t overthink it.