12 Excerpt from My Original Golf Diary-The Indoor Putting Match

10-23-11

      In this excerpt, one of my favorites, I tell the story of an impromptu indoor putting match that took place one night at Dave and Julie's house down in their basement.  I won, but some of the other guys had some amazing shots.

      In other news, I became the unofficial club champ in a match with Bruce and C.J. recently,  Eric and I go watch his brother-in-law Dan (about a 2) at a tournament at Pinon Hills, our JV volleyball team wins an incredible match against a rival, and most importantly, Bruce shoots an incredible eighteen holes at one under par!  Furthermore, I have three birdies I need to catch up on, one when I won the unofficial club championship and two more when Bruce had his best round ever.  My goal is to catch all of this up before Halloween.  

9-16-00
    I have caught up this diary completely on the laptop now.  I haven’t written in a while; so let me catch up even more.  I’ll start with a great putting match at Dave and Julie’s house.  They had a party before school started and

the usual people were there: Rocky and Kelly, Amanda and Eric, Randy and Letty (last name), and of course, Dave and Julie.  Dave has one of those indoor putting surfaces with a pretend bunker on the right side and pretend water on the left of the hole.  It also claps and cheers when you make it in, and no matter where you hit it, the ball is usually returned to you, but not always to the same place.  We started out just putting around, but Eric suggested we play a game.  Of course, I was thrilled.  We decided to play nine holes, and different people could make the holes up as we went along.  We decided on each hole what it would take to make par and went from there.  The first hole was just a straight shot from the end of the carpet.  If you made it in one, it was a birdie.  Here are the rest of the holes as best as I can remember.

Hole 2- We put the ball straight off the carpet about a foot.

Hole 3- We moved the ball back even farther.  It was in front of the ping pong table and to the right of the hole.  Rocky got an eagle on this hole by hitting it in in one shot.  It was an incredible shot, because it had to go up onto the small carpet the hole was attached to, and hit it at an angle.

Hole 4- This time, we started the ball behind the ping pong table near the south wall, and you had to putt it between the legs of the table and it was a par three.

Hole 5- From the television, you had to hit it between a chair and a footrest.  If you made it through, you had a chance for a birdie.  Rocky “designed” this hole. 

Hole 6- I think this was the hole that you had to hit it out of the downstairs closet, go through a tube taped down to the carpet, then go to the green.  It was a par four.  Dave created this hole.

Hole 7- This hole you had to hit it down the stairs.  After that you had a shot at the hole if it made it out of the doorway at the bottom of the stairs.  Eric helped think up this hole.

Hole 8- This was my hole.  I set up a risk/reward type hole.  If you wanted to be aggressive, you had to hit it under the weight bench, which also had a dumbbell underneath it.  It was a risky shot, because you ran the chance of getting stuck underneath.  If you wanted to play it safe, and have a better chance at par, you could opt to play it to the right side which had no obstacles, and then get it close and make par. 

Hole 9-  These holes might be mixed up a little, but these were the nine different holes we played that night.  On this hole, you had to shoot it out of the doorway at the bottom of the stairs, then lay up in front of a book which had a tube taped to the top of it.  After hitting it through the tube, you could go for a long birdie attempt.  Mostly, Eric put this hole together.

   

So, after all was said and done, these were probably the best eighteen holes I have ever played (we played the course twice).  Of course, I didn’t have to do a full swing on these holes (my weakness right now), but it was some great golf for me.  I ended up six under par!  That’s right.  Six under par!  I think I only had one bogey.  On hole four, I put the ball right on that little skinny carpet.  On hole five, I hit it right between the chair and the footrest, and got it on the carpet again.  The first time I played the “stair” hole, I got it down the stairs and out the doorway without a hitch.  On my hole, I birdied it the first time, and played it safe to keep my lead the second time.  It was not only good shot making, but it was also careful course management. 

    Dave had two amazing shots.  On one, he had to hit it up over the plastic lip of the hole where it was attached to the carpeting part.  He hit that plastic, and it went up and in!  Looking at it before he hit it, I still don’t see how he made that one.  On another, I don’t know how much skill was involved more than maybe anger (he was losing), but he hit it off the wall and it went in.

    I was very proud of my effort that night.