Golf... You Gotta Love It!

I just shot an e-mail off to a friend that will soon be retiring and whom I hope will be a golfing buddy. I need someone like that - someone to drag me out of the office and onto the course.

I had the opportunity to play golf last Friday in a tournament for Fresno/Madera Youth for Christ. The event was at the Copper River Country Club here in Fresno. If you have ever golfed with me (unless it was on my unbelievable round at the Princeville Makai Course last April in Kauai - 82!), you know that I am not that great a golfer. My typical score is 95-104 - but at least I am a bad golfer who plays fast and doesn't hold up play!

The tournament is a scramble format and you have to use at least 2 drives from everyone. Lately, my driver has not been good to me, but what are you gonna do?

So we get to Hole #2 (we started at #8), a 500-yard par 5. After a drive, you need to elude a large bunker set into a hillside on the right. The approach is well uphill over a front bunker to a three-tiered, angular green.

I figure, "What the heck? I'll give my driver a shot." I take a 3/4 swing and BOOM - 250 yards. Everyone else tees off and they got bumpkis. So we take my drive. Whew - one down!

I pull out my 3 wood for the uphill approach and BAM, I hit is about 180 and it settles in right next to the bunker on a little rise. Again, everyone else hits and gets nothing - OB or short. So we take my approach.

I'm feeling pretty good as I set up for shot to the green. The green is elevated and guarded be a hill, so while you can see the pin, you can;t see the green. Knowing my limitations - like I'd be lucky to get it on the green in decent position... EVER - I just try to make a good swing with good contact.

I pure the shot. If you golf, you know what that feels like. If you're me, you only know what that feels like once in a blue moon. It feels good - real good. My ball heads straight for the green in the direction of the pin. I am happy that I am on the green (at least I figure I am - remember, we can;t see the green from where we are). Everyone else hits and gets nothing.

We walk up to the green and - yes, miracles do happen - I was about 6 inches from the cup! What, you thought I was going to say I holed it? Needless to say, I was ecstatic about my tap-in birdie!

The rest of my day was my usual junk, interspersed with moments of decent golf. But that's what makes golf great - that one shot... that one hole. And that's why I keep going back - that, and the memory that on a trade-windy day in April of 2005 on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I was 2 strokes away from breaking 80.

You gotta love this game!