We teed off at 6:15 at Rancho Bernardo, the sun low and gold over the 1st but the sky already filling in grey behind it, with Ian, Jim, and Eric. The forecast said overcast and the forecast meant it — the gold burned off inside an hour and didn't come back. You opened by pulling the driver into the wilderness right of the 1st, and we made a double before we'd properly woken up. Not the start we wanted. But then the round settled — par on 2 out of the bunker, par on 3 down the middle, par on 4. By the 3rd green you said it: early, not playing great, but a nice day. That was the honest read.

The middle of the front had its moments. On 5 you put the second into the rough, the pitch caught the bunker lip, and from down there — under the lip, the worst place — you flopped the 54 out to four feet and saved bogey. That was the shot of the front nine and you knew it. Six through 8 was steady scrambling: a three-putt on 6 from forty-five feet, a clean par-save on 7, a routine par on 8 after you flushed the drive 271 down the middle. On 9 the 9-iron caught the bunker, we made another bogey, and at the turn you wrote what was true — some good shots, struggling off the tee, average on the greens. The greens were fast. They stayed fast all day.

"At the turn... Still overcast, was hoping for sun by now. Some good shots on the front, but struggling off the tee Ave on the greens. Greens are fast!"

The back nine was where the putter quietly took the round apart. Not in any dramatic way — just a steady tax. Three-putt from thirty on 11. Three-putt from twelve on 12, after a 2-hybrid into the native area off a good drive. A short one missed on 13 that should have been a tap-in. Three-putt from fifty-seven on 15. None of them ruinous on their own; together they were the round. The ball-striking on the back wasn't bad — you found four fairways, hit four greens, kept giving yourself looks. The looks didn't fall.

Then 16. You blocked the drive into the trees right and took the penalty. From 108 in the rough you wedged it forward, pitched on to fifteen feet, and rolled it in. *Finally made a putt* — that's what you wrote, and that's what it was. A bogey that felt like more than a bogey because the stroke we'd been bleeding all day finally came back. Par on 17 right behind it, the 2-hybrid in the fairway, the pitching wedge to twenty-one feet, two putts, clean.

Eighteen we leaked one last time — drive into the native area, three to get on, two putts for a closing bogey. We walked off the 18th green at the high overcast hour, 85, with the round honest about itself: the long game had a pulse, the putter didn't, and you played through it without grinding the day into the ground.