A Day In My Life

Jenny's alarm clock went off at 3:50 a.m.. We needed to leave the house at 4:30 to be at the course at 5:00. She had to help set things up.

The schedule had asked the golfers to show up at 5:30, to get ready for a 6:00 tee time. I was excited for breakfast as I hadn't eaten dinner before my soccer game the night before and tried sleeping afterwards.

Because of some frost on the greens at the course, the greenskeeper pushed our start time back until 6:45 to keep the course in better shape. 6:45 is early in the morning.

Without warming up at all, 3 of us (there were 11 golfers) headed to the first tee while the other twosomes drove to their starting holes. I was hoping to play better than bogey golf (90 per round) for the day, and figured this round would be a good indicator at that possibility. I shot an 89 over the first 18, but was getting more awake, and knew the course better now, so hoped I might improve for at least one of the rounds, but was ecstatic with being under bogey golf at that point.

Finishing 18, I drove to hole 12, to meet up with my next pairing. We changed each round to play with different people. I played the next 18 holes with a score of 87 and was hoping to fend off soreness to finish the day under my goal.

The third round wasn't as kind, and I shot a 91, again playing in a threesome, but with all new people. Not many highlights from that round, though I had my worst score of the day (my only 8) during that 18.

The fourth round was my favorite. Holes 55-72 were my best 18 of the day for numerous reasons. I shot the best round for me of the day that 18, and 85, in large part to my first eagle ever. I'll describe that hole after this summary. It was also my favorite for one other shot, to be shown in picture below as we play a hole together.

Round 5 is when the fatigue started to show in the body and it was getting harder to keep the hands in speed with the turn of the body. I lost a lot of shots to the right, but putted a lot better and shot a 91 again.

The last 9 holes, I played in 1 over bogey golf, totaling my individual talley at 99 holes in 6 under bogey golf. The last hole of the day had all 11 of us teeing off on the same hole at the same time. We played a best ball scramble with each other to finish. I was happy that my drive was the best of the 11 as I wasn't close to the best golfer there, but found a good shot this late in the evening. We ended up birdying that hole, gratifying as a group, but not to me, as that hole (hole 18) was the hole that I had eagled when I played it as my 66th hole of the day.

So, here is that hole. A 490 yard par 5 that is a dog leg to the right. The fairway runs straight from the tee about 290 yards before turning right for the last 200. If you miss the fairway to the right you find 20 yards worth of pine trees and then the driving ranged marked out of bounds. To the left is just rough, but lengthens the hole considerably.

Both the time we played the scramble and the time I eagled the hole I hit similar drives. 275 yards down the right center of the fairway. Leaving myslef about 215 to the center of the green. The pin was on the left side of the green at about the center yardage. I hit my 3 hybrid iron and found myself on the right side of the green. I had about 16 feet left for the putt and new it would break towards the front of the green (to my left).

I had told the people with me at that time (one golfer and his wife) that eagle putts are few and far between, so I would rather be passed the pin and off the green after my first putt than end up missing 2 inches short. I just couldn't leave it short. It was the only putt of the day I took the time to line up, as we were playing at a fast pace and just got general break ideas for most putts. I was full of joy when it found the center of the cup, and happy to receive fist bumps all around.

5 holes later came my second most memorable hole of the day, even though it was a bogey.

We'll play it together now.

The hole is a 370 yard par 4. Any miss to the right off the tee is in water. Any miss longer than 250 to the left is water and short is in rough. We don't have a picture of my tee shot this hole, but the result of it was interesting enought that the rest of the hole was caught by Jenny who was riding along with me for 3 or 4 holes.

You may not be able to see it, but there is a ball in this picture. Between the tree and the water, there is a ball in the "marsh" level of the grass. A distinct ring of grass found completely in water, with no ability to stand where we needed to. We pulled our tee shot left, and had about 120 yards left to the pin, with all of that water in the way.


We couldn't stand to hit it right handed without being in the water, and not knowing how far it would come out of the water I decided taking off my left shoe to attempt the green just wasn't worth it. Instead, we did the fun, turn a club upside down and swing left handed hoping we could put the ball back in the fairway.

After perhaps the most entertaining shot of the day for others to watch, mud had flown on my arms and pants enough that I toweled of my wet arm, but we found ourselves having done as well as we could have managed. The ball flew in tha air over a chunk of the water and towards the hole about 50 yards landing in the fairway. We had 70 yards left to chip. (This fairway shot is my favorite picture from the day)

Our chip found the green and we had a long putt left for par. We didn't make it or get it into gimme range so we had about 5 feet left for our bogey. (Dale in the background was my playing partner for my favorite round that included the eagle and this fun backwards shot.)


Making the putt, we walked off with our bogey, but will always just remember this hole for the left handed upside-down club shot actually working. I was glad Jenny got to see this hole live with me.

This was a day of my life.