35th Excerpt From My Golf Diary! A Writing From the First Day of April Posted on the Last Day of April...16 Years Later

Written on 4-1-02.

     It’s official.  I am now a member of the PGA tour.  You can call me a true professional golfer.  Okay, okay, you got me.  It hasn’t happened yet, and it’s really April Fool’s Day, but it sure sounds conceivable to me.  Do you believe I can do it?  I do.  People, for the most part, become what they think they will become.  I was just reading again from Dr. Bob Rotella’s book, Golf is not a Game of Perfect, about the power of dreams.  My dream is alive and well.  I think about it every day. When I go to bed at night, just before I fall asleep, I see and visualize myself playing great golf.  I picture myself sometimes walking up the eighteenth fairway with a two stroke lead or better in a Senior PGA Event.  I am relaxed, happy, and having fun.  It will happen.   I will persevere.  With this coming summer off, I plan on practicing and playing more than I ever have.

     I played okay when Guy was here for...
spring break.  I was hot and cold.  Short game was the most consistent part of my game.  This diary is mostly about good memories, so here are the highlights…

I got four pars on the front nine at Pinon Hills, including two in a row on holes #4, the downhill par three, and the difficult, over the canyon, par four #5 which I almost birdied with the Thomas demo 7-iron shot quite a while ago.  I also finished the front nine with a par and a bogey on the difficult finishing par fives.  I was very proud of that bogey.  That last par five “was” a nemesis hole for me.  

     On the back nine, at Pinon, I scored five bogeys.  We played with two other guys.  One was a helper/assistant coach for Piedra Vista named Gaylord.  He was quite a bit older, maybe in his sixties, but he played from the blue tees.  He made the day very enjoyable.  

     He got a par on hole #2, and I said, “Nice par!”

     He replied, “Oh, it’s just a par.”

     On hole #4, when I got par, I teased him by saying I had scored just a par.   He laughed, and on the next hole when I got another par with a long, breaking, uphill putt, I told him I got just another par.  He joked with me telling me I was milking that one for all it was worth.  Guy, Gaylord, and I all laughed.  He was great fun to play with.

     His partner, however, was miserable to play with.  His name was Pete, and he was a postal worker.  He was not very good at all.  He was very short… about as short as his temper.  He consistently shanked it to the right.  He hit it into the rough on almost every hole, threw his club on hole #2, and had some very colorful language that I will not repeat here.