Written on 1-1-17.
I’m over at the Edgerton’s house watching the Broncos in their final game. They are killing the Raiders right now, but the game is already over. I know they’ve already won, but the game was recorded over here, so I am watching how they won, getting one last Bronco fix before the end of their season. Amanda and Eric are up at the cabin, and Becca and Matt left about an hour ago to meet them. Kyle will be coming over here soon to celebrate Phillip’s 21st birthday.
Happy new year! I’m keeping this entry in this diary, though, because I have more birdies and eagles to report, and they all happened before 2017. Bruce, also, had his best round of the season for his last round, so I have to get that in here. It was an incredible way to end 2016.
Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #18-Eagle #5 of 2016!
The game was stroke play with handicaps. I knew I wasn’t doing too well, and as it turned out, this eagle made the difference for the game, but not in the way I expected.
I don’t know why I chose to go for the fairway on...
#18, but I did. It was a boomer of a drive. We all know the harder, slightly frozen fairways helped, but this drive was one of the longest I’ve ever had on this hole, making it all the way to the cart path for the first time ever.
Continued on 1-6-17.
Bruce commented during our next round how this drive and my drive on #14 were longer than usual, and I agreed; I really got a hold of them. The drive on #14 left me with only 84 yards to the green, but to be truthful, the tees were up again.
My ball ended up just a couple of inches before the cart path, so I took my free drop. Bruce had already made his approach, so he waited and watched for mine. I chose my 9-iron, and the hole was cut on the front right side this time. This swing was another one of those swings that makes me want to come back. Knowing that letting the club do all the work is the best way to swing the club, I really had very little to do with this result. It felt comfortable, like putting on my leather jacket, and it felt effortless, too, like subconsciously driving around a sharp turn on Wolf Creek with just the right amount of G-force. I’m not certain, but after my ball flew over the trees on the right side of the fairway, I thought it smacked the flag on its descent. Whether it did or not (I swore I heard something), it certainly flew directly over the flag and stopped well above the hole.
When I looked over the putt, I remembered that keeping it out to the right would be the best bet, but the speed was difficult to predict. Not enough and my ball could stop 15 feet above the hole. Too much, which was a greater possibility, and my ball could roll right off the green. I chose to go easy, and right after the ball left my putterhead, C.J. said, “Pat, you got to hit it!”
He said it a couple of times, actually, as my ball continued to roll on its painfully slow descent. I said to C.J., “It’s still going.”
Bruce said the same thing, and he also said just before my ball fell in that it looks like it’s going to make it and go in the hole. And then my ball fell in the hole!
There was much rejoicing! We all laughed. We celebrated. We laughed some more. What made it so funny was C.J.’s comment about my having to hit it to get it there. Obviously, I had somehow stumbled upon the correct speed. This putt was similar, in my opinion, to the one on #14 where I had to putt around the top of the bowl. It was tough to read, but my instincts somehow turned out to be correct.
With that eagle, I shot a 45 on the back, a pretty lousy score for me. I was thankful for my finishing eagle. I quickly figured the scores as we were entering the parking lot, and the results were fascinating. We must know our games very well, and our handicaps must be accurate. C.J. said he was a 20, so we subtracted 10 strokes from his score. I said I was a 14, so I subtracted 7, and Bruce said he was an 8, so we took off 4 from his. When all the subtractions were made, we had tied with three 38’s!
We managed to get in one last round before 2016 came to a close. We knew the weather was going to be slightly better on Friday, so we agreed to come back again and play a full 18 holes this time. I’m so glad we did. It was one of the best and most memorable rounds of the year.
C.J. chose the Points Game, and the only big difference this time was when Bruce said right at the outset that if anyone gets an eagle, he wins the game outright. Usually, an eagle is worth 10 points for this game.
I was getting killed. After hole #8, Bruce was ahead with 32 points. He had also already earned two birdies on holes #1 and #6. C.J. was not far behind with 22 points. He cleaned up with a ton of pushed points on hole #5 with a par. I had a chance to gather up most of those points on hole #4, though, with an easy par putt, but I left it short. I was wallowing with only 6 points from hole #1. I scored zero points for holes #2 through #8.
Bruce ended up +4 after hole #9. I managed to catch up a little on hole #9 with my first birdie of the round.
Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #9-Birdie #63 of 2016
I stubbornly chose my driver again, despite the harder ground. It had warmed up enough, though, to stop my ball before it went into the ditch again. Bruce wasn’t so lucky, and he had to make an unbalanced swing from the ditch for his approach. My 6-iron landed my ball just short of the green, even though I felt confident it would land on the green. The hole was on the middle of the left side. I chose to putt from off the green. The distance to the green was about the same as the distance from the fringe to the hole, so I really had to smack it. My goal was to get my ball all the way to the hole, of course, but it fell short, way short. It ended up on the green, but it was only six feet from the fringe and my remaining putt was 20-25 feet. At least I would get points for a green in regulation, I thought. We all had putts of about the same distance, but mine was the only one that went in. C.J. missed his long putt for par, and Bruce nearly hit the hole with his downhill birdie putt, but ended up triple-putting for a bogey. I earned 10 points for that hole to bring me back into the game. Then things got really interesting and fun on the back nine of our last round of the year.
Bruce continued his dominating play right away on hole #10. He started with a rare and unlikely chip-in for birdie from the left side! Yes, the left side. It was amazing! Then he earned two pars in a row, one on #11 and another on the tough #12, so he was one under through the “witches” and the only one with points for the first three holes. And then another amazing thing happened on hole #13.
Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #13-Eagle #6 of 2016!
With nothing to lose, I chose to drive the green, but that’s what I always do. C.J. and Bruce couldn’t see my ball, but that was because it came out so low. It flew right over the evergreen on the right side of the fairway, and it was heading right for the right side of the green, too. With the right bounces, I thought it might end up on the green. It was hard to tell what would happen when it came down, though, especially with the lower trajectory.
It wasn’t until I was close to the green that I spied my ball. It was even with the hole on the right side, and it was just 15 feet away. I had driven the green for the first time in a while. I’d been close to the green before, but not on it in a long time. I was the last one to putt, and that’s when Bruce reminded us that I could win the game outright if I made this putt. C.J. had a chance on #5, too, but sadly he left his eagle putt well short. I was putting my ball from the sunshine into the shade because the hole was on the back left side, and it was still in the shade when we got there. I swiped away some just melted water that was just before the hole before I took my shot. I also had to step back once before putting, because I saw some gravel on my putterhead. I read a foot of break from right to left, and I gave it a go. I did my best to think of this putt as any other putt, not an eagle putt to win the game. My ball curved gently to the left for the last few feet and fell in! I had just gone from last place to winner with two strokes on one hole!
Bruce, not to be outdone, backed up my eagle with an eagle of his own on hole #14! Wow! I didn’t get back to back eagles, but I came pretty close.
Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #14-Birdie #64 of 2016
It’s fitting I should end 2016 with a birdie on the hole that gets birdied the most. My drive headed toward the alley, but it was long enough that it would make it past the snow. Much of the snow had melted on this second day, anyway. I ended up on the fairway, and my 7-iron got the call for the approach. I pushed it a bit, but the distance was good, my ball stopping just off the green on the top right side and past the hills, the same side where the hole was. I had another try for eagle. Bruce had his first legitimate shot at an eagle, too. He was just off the green near the front, but he was closer, so I went first. My ball missed the hole on the top left side, so no eagle for me.
Then Bruce gave his eagle putt from off the green a go, and he rolled it in! We exploded with happiness again. We were so happy that we had just gotten two eagles in a row, and it was amazing to have Bruce win our game after I had just won it in similar fashion. We had decided after my eagle to start over with the same game. I had to settle myself after all of that eagle excitement to focus on my putt. Thankfully, it wasn’t that difficult a putt, but it did take a fair amount of my attention. I was thrilled about Bruce’s eagle, but I also realized that I had just gone three under after two holes. That pales in comparison to what Bruce did next, though.
He went on a golf tear, or it was more like a golf shredding. His final scores, including that eagle, were 3, 3, 3, 3, and 4. He went five under for the last five holes, succumbing only one even par score on the par three #16. The rest of those scores were all under par. His comment after it was over was, “I can live on this for a while.”
He wanted to keep playing, actually. The weather was so good that his sentiment made sense, but if I had just done what he had done, I would not want to touch it. His final score was a 70. His six under score on the back more than countered his +4 score on the front for a final round of 2 under. Wow! On #15, he and C.J. were both within ten feet of the hole, but Bruce made his. On #17, he drove the ball to just off the green, pitched it to the back where it settled just off the green and below the hole, and then made another long putt from the fringe that was similar in distance to his eagle putt on #14. On #18, he went too far left on hole #3’s fairway, got stuck behind a tree short and right of the green after his approach, pitched on to about 15 feet, and made yet another fairly long putt to finish things off for this incredible back nine.
I shot a decent +4 score on the back, but he shot a 29! Ten strokes better than my score! Good grief! It really was a super way to end the year. I was happy to end with two eagles, and Bruce was thrilled to end on a back nine round of a lifetime. Can’t wait to see what happens in 2017.
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