Duffer

Golf was not the usual exercise in frustration today. My dad, my brother Jim and I went out and I, for reasons still unknown, absolutely hammered the ball at times. I hit the green on a par 5 in only two shots, the second a mere 5-iron after blasting a mammoth drive. Facing a treacherous 12-foot downhill put for eagle, I managed not to roll it too far past the hole and I made the 5-footer coming back for birdie, my first ever on a par 5. The 5-iron felt even better than the drive because I got to see it. If I hit a good drive it goes out of my sight, which is more of a comment on my visual acuity than it is the strength of my golf swing.


The 5-iron shot pictured above, unfortunately, was not the one worth remembering. Officials are still trying to determine if the ball landed in a neighbor's yard or in a neighboring area code to the one in which we were playing. Still love the follow through, though. Nice balanced finish.

Which I am sure is tremendous consolation to the homeowner with the "golf course view" who realized too late that his abode would become a frequent, if inadvertent, target for golf shots whose authors thought they were aiming at the putting green. At least we think it was unintentional vandalism.


Now this shot -- again for reasons yet to be explained -- actually went in the direction I hoped it would. It landed on the green from where I two-putted for my par. Almost like I knew what I was doing.

The luck didn't last and I ended up shooting a 98. Sort of. I only broke 100 because of a charitable score on a hole on which I lost one ball in the water and hit two others out of bounds. With all the penalty strokes, I ran out of fingers trying to count up my score but Dad wrote an 8 on the official scorecard.