We teed off at 6:13 at Twin Oaks, the sun still low and gold over the 1st, with Ian and Rick. You striped the opening drive down the middle, wedged it to fifteen feet, and two-putted for an easy par. A clean start. We made a routine 5 at the 2nd and I figured we were settling into something.
Then 3 and 4 leaked. The 6-iron on 3 came up in the rough, you got it to seven feet and missed — a putt you usually make, and it stung a little — and on 4 the long irons stayed crooked, the 8-iron found more rough, and the up-and-down didn't come. Two bogeys back to back. The round wanted a moment.
It got one on 5. You laced the drive 285 down the middle — "finally waking up a bit," you said, and you weren't wrong. The 3-wood leaked into the right rough, which left 35 yards with a 54 in your hand. You holed it. Pitched in for eagle. That's the swing of the day and probably the swing of the month — from a spot you usually walk off with a five, you walked off with a three. We stood there a second longer than we needed to.
"Big drive! Finally waking up a bit"
The rest of the front held together on scrambling. The 54 out of the bunker on 6 to nine feet, and you rolled it in. The 58 from six yards on 8 to eight feet, made. On 9 you blocked the 3-wood into the wilderness right and somehow still found the green and got down in two — you told me you were tired, and I believed you, but the short game was carrying us. We made the turn at 37, one over, with the sun coming up properly now.
"Very tired, but hanging in"
The back opened the same way the front kept ending: ugly off the tee, saved around the green. The 5-iron on 10 sailed into the native stuff, but you nipped a 54 to thirteen feet and holed the putt for par — a stroke or so better than you usually get from that mess. From 11 through 13 we played proper golf, three pars in a row, the long lag on 12 to tap-in range exactly the kind of putt that keeps a round upright.
"Finally sun is out! It's warning up with this humidity, too"
Then it came undone slowly, the way these things do. On 14 you striped the drive and yanked the wedge from 109 — the one swing on the back where you had a real look and didn't take it. Bogey. On 15 you three-putted from fifty feet; the first one ran ten by and the comebacker burned the edge. On 16 the driver found the native area, the recovery iron found more rough, the wedge came up short of the green, and we eventually two-putted from thirteen for a six. On 17 the 5-iron leaked into the rough again and the up-and-down wouldn't come. Four bogeys in four holes. Nothing dramatic — just the approach game running a little dry and the par putts not falling.
You closed it well. On 18 you pulled the drive into the fairway bunker, advanced the 6-iron, caught another bunker with the 8, and then nipped the 54 to a foot for the kick-in par. A good walk off.
We finished at 10:22, five over, the humidity already up. The eagle on 5 was the round; the short game on the back was what kept the number reasonable when the irons stopped cooperating. If golf is a game of misses, you missed in the right places today.