When you’re 7 over after the first 3 holes you’ve got to wonder what the hell you are doing playing this game and when you have to put up with tears and fragile daddy caddy egos taking a beating you got to wonder why the hell you put up with it at all. At this point in the course, Bear (who we watched the first 3 holes), was 1 under par and doing it all on his own happy and peacefully.
Leave Rob alone was pretty much what I had done our first 3 holes as I texted to arrange for someone to let the dogs out during the day and followed up on an email arranging an interview for Rob – and maybe that’s the problem. Time to engage!
And, in a little universal appreciation for locking in he went :
Par
Par
Par
Par
Then I wondered to myself, as I stood on the cart path watching his set up for a 4 foot putt for par on the 8th green if I should actually be down there fully engaged in the putt.
As it turns out, yes, I should have.
So I jumped straight back in. Talked through every shot.
Where is your aim? Are you going straight for that cluster of Pines?
Visualized where the ball should land.
Do you know exactly where on the green you are going to land this?
Made him repeat.
I’m landing this on the ridge and letting it roll gently towards the hole.
On long putts our usual mantra:
I’m going to roll this so it stops right next to the hole.
Except on this particular 9th green, following an incredible chip:
I’m going to roll this so it stops right in the middle of the hole.
Birdie !
We make the turn and wait forever – 4 groups in sight down the fairway ! Excruciating. But the boys are happy and chatty and we’re sitting in the shade of a beautiful Oak. There are worse places to be in the world !
And when we got under way again it did not seem to matter that I was fully present and engaged. We went: Bogey, Bogey, Double – before the 4th hole mojo set in for Par.
But the mojo sputtered and sagged along in the rain-soaked, tear-stained fairway. The rules of engagement blurred and the results where largely hit or miss, or perhaps more accurately hit and miss.
Then, on the 18th hole, our intrepid hero stuck a hunk of South African biltong in his mouth, set off on his own and parred the most difficult hole on the course in the most engaging fashion possible. Boom !
