FanNation

What a game is this golf. Coming off my loop today, reminded me of just that reality.

One of my two players was lights out on the front, throwing in bomb after bomb through 8 holes. Par on 9 gives him a 37 (+1) on the front nine of the difficult course where I caddy. 

Number 9 is a short, straight away par 4. The only trouble off the tee is a forced carry of about 150 yards over an environmentally protected area and dead left which is out of bounds. He's had no real difficulty driving the ball up to this point. Mostly been "walking the dog" around the course (short but straight).

He's got no noticable anxiety about the hole. Doesn't seem to be "fighting" anything. Smooth sailing so far. But as all golfers come to terms with at one point or another, there is no such thing as pacific seas on the golf course.

The wheels come off after he dunks his tee shot into the protected area. Re teeing, he's "hitting 3" now. "3" does the same thing, i.e., right back into the protected area. Now he's "hitting" 5. Off the tee! This time his ball finds the left fairway bunker. Shot 6 is an explosion shot just to get the ball back into the fairway. Shot seven lands in the greenside bunker. Another explosion gets shot eight to about 15 feet from the hole. Three putts later, he's in for an 11. And "37" becomes 44.

To the back nine we go. Tee shot on 10 is "fanned" right out of bounds. Now "hitting" 3 from the same tee, he makes the fairway and proceeds to double bogey the par 4 on his way to shooting 47 on the back nine for an 18 hole score of 91. So what began as an opportunity for this man to shoot the best score of his life, ended up in the trash pile of his forgotten golf rounds. All because of one lousy swing on hole number 9.