In news outside of golf, I may be offered a job for either a full-time specialist or a part-time coaching position through C.O.R.E. (Collaboration for Outstanding Readiness in Education) through N.M.S.U. It’s a grant, and it involves traveling to schools in northern New Mexico to help teachers. Gee, that’s what I’m all about now. It’s a perfect fit for me, in my opinion, and the only remaining issues are whether I’ll be offered the job or not and whether or not I’ll take the specialist or the coaching position. We have discussed it mightily these past couple of days, getting opinions from our parents and others.
At this point, I’m leaning towards the full-time position. Might as well. What else am I doing right now? I would have a greater impact, make a better salary, and could include some of my marketing for Time to Teach. Wow! Almost sounds too good to be true. I have sent my resume to the coordinator and am waiting to possibly speak with the hiring committee today or tomorrow. I will report what happens the next time I write, of course.
In other golf news, I took some time to catch up some more on my official birdie and eagle count recently, and I am up to 286 birdies and 15 eagles through Golf Diary Part 11. I am now working on Golf Diary Part 12, which is the year 2014. I am getting closer and closer, and that is very exciting to me. I am motivated to know what my current total of birdies and eagles is. I earned another birdie and another eagle playing with C.J. this Tuesday.
Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #8-Birdie #42 of 2016
C.J. and I chose to take on the Bogey Man again. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be laughing at us by the end of this round. This birdie helped. We managed to meet our goal of +4 on the front nine, but in order to beat him on the back, we had to get +3 or better. +8 on the entire round would result in a tie.
The drive was pretty, a slight draw that started straight up the right side of the fairway and curved to the left near the end, settling just off of the fairway, a mere pitch from the green. The flag was on the middle tier and it was close to the edge of the first tier. C.J. made a comment about how tough this position was. Many were in difficult positions we noticed.
C.J. made a fun par here, going driver, then driver again (to go under a tree) to get his ball on the green in regulation. Then he showed some great putting skills to use up only two putts from the bottom tier despite the hard pin position.
I wanted to make sure I erred on the side of being long rather than short this time. So, I added some extra oomph with my pitch/approach. It worked. My ball landed on the correct tier, but it was long. I now had to putt back towards the edge of the ridge, but it wasn’t so bad. I thought the putt was mostly straight, but C.J. claimed it moved a bit to the right. Either way, it went in. It was about a 15 foot putt.
Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #14-Eagle #3 of 2016!
We were not doing so well on the back against the Bogey Man. Right away, we were +2 after the first two holes. I hit the green on #12, close enough to secure a par, and then C.J. got a bogey on #13 after I earned a double with some weed trouble and a chunked chip. So, we were already +3, and we had only played four holes. Then I made this eagle.
My drive was similar to the one on #8, a beauty that went up the right side, but with less of a draw. Boy, great drives sure make a difference in my scoring. I know I gain strokes when I make drives like this one. I was just past the 150 yard marker. Earlier in the round, I spied the flagstick, and it was on the top right side. Since that time, somebody had moved the hole locations, probably preparing for Taco Tuesday later that night. My approach landed my ball on the green very close to where the pin was earlier that day. Now, however, the pin was on the opposite side of the green.
This putt confounded me. I didn’t know what to do, honestly. I considered going down into the bowl and back up and out again. I was also looking at going way high above the bowl, thinking it could break as much as 20 feet to the right. It looked impossible to even get it on that side and keep it on the green, no less near the hole, but as Luke Skywalker said, “It’s not impossible. I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home, and they weren’t much bigger than two meters.”
C.J. was trying to picture it, too. I think he went and stood at a spot off the green where he thought I should aim, and that’s close to the spot I finally settled on. Just before pulling the trigger, I picked a spot where some fungus had been dug out, and it was the one closest to the bowl. I noticed many other similar spots above that one, and then I let it go.
My ball stayed out of the bowl as it headed towards the left side of the green, and then it turned as it continued along the rim. I was asking it to stay up as it rolled along, and it was kind enough to listen. After it turned right, it straightened out and headed for destiny. C.J. talked about how it looked like it was going to go in, and as it got closer, he sounded more and more confident, “It’s going to go in!”
When it was four feet away, I was certain, too, and then it rolled directly into the hole. Wow! What a putt! I whooped! I dropped my putter. I pulled my hat and sunglasses off of my head and threw them onto the green. C.J. cheered and headed over to congratulate me. It was a fun moment! I was elated. Some guy up on the teeing ground from #18 hollered down, “I bet you couldn’t make that again!”
I yelled back, “I know I couldn’t make that again!”
We went from +3 to +1 after that, just like that.
I ended up getting a par on #15 (no P.E.F.U.), and I got another par on #16. C.J. had a miserable time on #17, and I got another double, so were +3 after that, but I ended with another par on #18, so we beat the Bogey Man. It had been a long time, but this time we got to laugh at him instead of the other way around. I shot a 45, 39 for a respectable 84.
