This is non-triathlon related so if you don’t want to read about golf, just skip it. And if you want to read it and bitch, that’s ok because I don’t care.
Obviously, this isn’t a race report but considering how busy I have been a work this year, it’s the closest I’m going to get to a race for a long time and I feel a compulsion to share this event, which is the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me.
I used to play a lot (index of 8, which in triathlon terms is probably like running a 18 or 19 minute 5k, better than average but nothing to write home about). To me, there is no more zen experience in life than being on a golf course. The beauty, the peace, the feel of the grass, the click of a well struck shot, the sight of the ball framed against the blue sky. If you are a golfer, you get it; if not, I’m sure it sounds boring.
Five years ago, when we had our second child my wife asked me to quit playing golf to help her out at home. I instantly realized that she was right and that it had been very self-centerd for me to keep playing so much after the birth of our first. So I quit, and wasn’t upset at all as I knew it was the right thing to do. Since then I’ve played about 10 rounds.
Two weeks ago, I went to a business conference that had a golf tournament on the first day (got to love lawyers, we figure out a way to double shmooze even when we were already shmoozing) and I took my clubs. It was a scramble format and I was playing with 3 guys I had never played with before. It was a great foursome and we had a lot of fun.
I got in late the night before, was still on Eastern time, so when I woke up early I went running and since I had no idea where I was or where to go, I went to the golf course. Had a good run and as luck would have it, I turned around on the 11th hole. So I got an incredible look at the hole as I ran down the left side of the fairway, circled the green, and ran back up the right side. I realized that the hole was very canted to the right and that the landing area was on the left side of the fairway.
The short version is that the hole was downhill and downwind. Our A player told me to hit it over a certain tree on the left hand side of the fairway and it would run back towards the center of the fairway. I felt really confident standing over the shot because having run the hole earlier in the day, I knew that was exactly the right line. I hit the snot out of it exactly where he said to hit it and it flew about 280 in the air, took a kick towards the center of the fairway and rolled onto the green. I was hoping the ball would stop short of the hole so we would have a good eagle putt. The ball kept rolling, broke about 5 feet left-to-right tracking right towards the hole, and suddenly we couldn’t see it anymore.
I was sure it was in the hole and the A player started yelling “It’s in the f’ing hole!” But one of the other players said he thought it rolled off the green. One other time I came close to a hole in one but the ball was exactly behind the pin and obscured from sight so I refused to get my hopes up until I got to the green (you can see in one of the pictures I even took my putter onto the green because I didn’t want to be embarrassed if it wasn’t in the hole). It was in the hole. 332 yard hole-in-one. My wife looked it up on the internet and “it” said the odds for an amateur golfer getting an albatross were somewhere between 1 million and 6 million to 1.
For my birthday she is going to frame the card, ball and a picture of the foursome.
It was like winning the lottery (except no money). Team won the scramble by 4 shots, I had to buy drinks for the entire tournament field.
The most beautiful sight in golf:
In shock:
“Oh golf gods, thank you for ending my 43 years of suffering. This moment has made it all worthwhile”:
A happy guy:
Because this is ST, I’m sure someone will offer advice on how it could have been done better!
