We teed off at 9:17 at Indian Canyons North, the sun still low over the 1st, the air already warm and bone-dry — 81 and clear, barely a breath of wind all morning. Just you and Steve. You split the 1st fairway, wedged on, two-putted for a tidy par, and we were off.
Then the 2nd happened. You pushed the drive into the rough, which left 144 and the kind of lie that usually costs you. Instead you flushed the 9-iron to two feet and knocked it in for birdie — "off the tree," you said, and whatever it caught, that was a hole and a half you don't usually walk off with. From there the front turned into a clinic in finding greens the hard way. The 8-iron on 4 from 156 was the swing of the morning, stuck close enough to feel like birdie before the putter leaked. Through the middle you kept missing fairways and kept hitting greens anyway — the irons bailed you out again and again. On 9 you tugged the wedge into the bunker, then clipped a 9-iron out and holed a twelve-footer to save par. You wanted a break at the turn — "hitting it great but getting tired" — and we'd earned one, out in 34.
The back opened the same way the front ended: scrappy and productive. On 10, the par five, you drove into rough, caught the greenside bunker, then floated a 54 to four feet and tapped in for birdie. Two under through ten, and the round had a real shape to it.
Twelve is where the tired legs showed. You pulled the drive left into the rough, couldn't find the green, and left yourself fifteen feet for par that slid by. Bogey. Thirteen was the one that stung — a genuine par-five chance, on in three from 40 feet, and then the putter went cold. You left the first one nine feet short and missed the comebacker. Three-putt, six, and the round was back to even. That nine-footer was a stroke you almost always make.
You answered it on 15. Off the tee you took the 4-iron, into the rough, pitched to 43 feet — and holed it. A forty-three-footer for birdie that you had no business making and made anyway. Back under par, and the longest smile of the day.
Seventeen gave the stroke right back the same way thirteen did — on the green in two from the fairway, then another cold nine-footer missed for a three-putt bogey. The putter was the one part of the bag that never quite showed up; the irons carried you all day and the flat stick kept handing a little of it back. We closed out 18 with a routine par, and walked off at 1:58, even par, the sun high and the course quiet. Sixteen greens in regulation and a 72. If golf is a game of greens, we played it well today.