Your Valspar Championship picks won't count on the QE2

Morning from Central Alberta — five communities, one correspondent, and all the stories the big papers forgot.

Well now, I'll tell you what, everyone's talkin' about the Valspar Championship and who's gonna clean up on the greens down in Florida. You see all the expert picks flyin' around, folks tryin' to figure out the "Snake Pit" and all that. But out here, along the QE2, our "Snake Pit" ain't got nothin' to do with golf. It's more about the potholes that'll swallow your tires whole between Red Deer and Lacombe if you're not payin' attention, or the price of feed when you're tryin' to keep your herd fed through a long winter. Those golf pros might be worried about a bogey, but around here, we're worried about the next bust cycle, or if the spring melt's gonna flood the south end of Red Deer again, or if this El Niño weather is gonna give us another dry summer.

See, a lot of these big sports stories, they just kinda float over us like a forgotten cloud. Folks in Red Deer, Blackfalds, and even Innisfail, they're not too concerned with who's sinkin' a putt on the 18th hole down south. We're more concerned with how the Red Deer Rebels are lookin' for the playoffs, or if the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra's "Magic of Mozart" show is gonna sell out. Those are the stories that got legs like a yearling around here, the ones that actually make a difference in our day-to-day. We're watchin' the price of oil, the grain markets, and whether Highway 11 between Sylvan Lake and Red Deer is ever gonna get fully twinned so we can actually get to the lake on a summer Friday without a two-hour drive. That's our kind of championship, I reckon.

Wyatt Brandt, MiTL Sports Desk, Red Deer.

Old Man Mac and the crew chew over the real scores every morning — catch 'em live at mornings.live.