We teed off at 7:33 at Encinitas Ranch, the sun still low and the marine layer holding the sky flat and grey, with Dennis, Seabass, and Rich. The air was cool, the wind barely there — one of those mornings where the course is going to let you play, if you let yourself.

You opened with a steady par, a 5-iron off the tee that found the fairway and a 54 from sixty to six feet. The 6-footer dropped. Hole 2 was the first wobble — a long 5-iron tee shot onto the par-3 green left us 96 feet, and the lag came up short. The 6-footer for par slid by. That was the only three-jack of the day and we put it behind us. Through 3 we walked off level, a routine par-5 par after a 3-wood from 232 and a wedge to fifteen.

The fourth was the swing of the front. You tugged the pitching wedge from 120 and we both watched it draw straight at the pin — your note said it all, *tugged it but ended up perfect haha*. Twelve feet left, and you rolled it in for birdie. That was a stroke and a half you don't usually get from that distance; the round had a pulse now. The fifth held it — a striped driver, a scrappy two-wedge sequence, eight feet for par, in. Then the 8-iron on 6 came up short into the rough and we made the bogey back. Honest exchange.

You found a rhythm through the middle — par on 7 from the rough off the tee, a bogey on 8 after the driver leaked into the native area on the right (the *case of the lefts* you mentioned on 9 was already starting to write itself), and a workmanlike par-5 from a fairway bunker on 9 after pulling the driver in there too. Make the turn at 38, two over, the sun beginning to push through the overcast.

"Some good, some bad. Case of the lefts .. need to either straighten that out or aim right ha ha"

The back started rough. Bogey on 10 from another bunkered tee ball, and on 12 we missed the green right with the 7-iron — that one cost us close to a stroke from a yardage we usually handle — and made bogey from there even after you rolled in a nervy 5-footer for the save. At +4 with six to play, the round needed something.

It got it on 13. You striped the driver and stuck the 9-iron to fifteen feet. The putt didn't fall but the swing was back. Fourteen, same shape — driver down the middle, 7-iron to the back edge, two-putt par from 56 feet, the lag a beauty. And then 15 was the shot of the day. From 121 in the rough you flushed the pitching wedge to nine feet — that's a stroke and a half from where most of your wedges from the rough end up — and you rolled in the birdie. The round was unrecognizable from the one we'd been playing an hour earlier.

You closed the way you wanted to. Par on 16, a tap-in par on 17 after a clean 54 from twelve yards, and on 18 you ripped the driver, then a 3-wood from 241 in the rough up to the front, a wedge to eighteen feet, and you holed the putt for birdie. That one was nearly a full stroke better than you usually get from that look.

We walked off 18 at 12:22, two over, 36 on the back to a 38 on the front, the marine layer finally burned off. The lefts came and went; the putter showed up. Good day's walk.