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Mark Twain didn't actually say golf is a good walk spoiled but he got credit for the quote because people think it sounds like something he might say.
I always think about this about the time I reach the sixth hole of any golfing day because I realize I should be having a better time than I actually am. That's because at around the sixth hole all of my golfing dreams have ceased to become possible. By this hole I have played long enough that there's no real hope of a run at even par, or, generally, a score in the 80s.
So around the seventh hole I start to have a good time and realize, yet again, that I'm not that good a golfer. This is a realization that, for whatever reason, most golfers refuse to have when the round begins. That's because on hole one every golfer believes they're actually good. Yep, most golfers, like talented cornerbacks in football, have short memories. We forget about the three balls we put in the creek in favor of the drive that got us near the creek. Or the long par putt we made as opposed to the four-putt from inside 20 feet.
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This column is the continuation of my round at TPC Sawgrass. Monday covered the first six holes, introduced our playing partners and informed you that I play golf with a $154 dollar set of clubs from Target. In the first six holes, I scored a quadruple bogey, played the wrong ball, peed in the woods, and decided that Harry, our caddy, liked me better than he liked Tardio. Here goes with the continuation.
7. As we approach the tee box on the seventh hole, I decide to enjoy the bucolic nature scenes all around us. That's the only explanation I have for why my seventh-hole notes contain this dialogue: "Are there alligators on this course?" I ask Harry. "A few," Harry says, "they're not very big." "Do people ask very much about alligators here?" "No," Harry says. "Did you know that there are pink dolphins?" "Get out of here!" Harry says.
Underneath all of this I have 7 written as my score. I have no idea what actually happened on this hole. My apologies.
8. My notes on the eighth hole: "A fox crosses the fairway in front of us." It's like I've suddenly decided to take a trip to the zoo. Then there are these notes to myself, "Double bunkers. You stink." I take a 6. (In my defense I think I might have been eating peanut M&M's on these holes and worried that if I tried to write too much I'd spill a piece of candy. For the record, this is how University of Florida coeds live every minute of their lives.)
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| Like many before him, Clay Travis didn't find the island green in one. He did avoid the water, however. (Getty Images) |
Harry nods. "That's a really smart play. Most people just try and power it through when they play the course here." "Does laying up make me a pansy?" Harry pauses for a moment and wrinkles his eyebrows as he ponders my question. "Yeah," he says, "it pretty much does." My reward for being a pansy is a missed par putt so I settle for bogey.
Tardio, meanwhile, is on fire. He birdies the hole and Harry rushes over to give him a fist-bump. When we climb back into the golf cart Tardio says, "I don't think Harry gives out the fist bumps indiscriminately, you have to earn it."
At the turn I've got a 51. Breaking 100 becomes my new goal.
10. Tardio keeps talking about his birdie en route to the tee box on 10. "When we watch the TPC on television, lots of pro golfers won't birdie that hole." "Stop bragging," I say. "I might hire Harry to come back and live with me. Having a caddy help me out all the time would make my life so much better." On Harry's advice I tee off with a 3-wood and hit a perfect shot. Then I follow it up with a bad approach to the green and land in a bunker. My first shot doesn't come out of the bunker but then I manage to put in a putt from the rough for a 6. Harry doles out the obligatory fist bump. Tardio pretends not to notice.
11. On 11, Harry sprints ahead into the fairway. Just before he leaves he tells us, "I'm going to give you guys hand signals because you won't be able to see where your ball lands." A safe sign from Harry means your ball is in good shape. An incomplete pass sign means you're in trouble.
After my drive I get the safe sign. Then I turn to Tardio and hand sign that I'm DTFI. Tardio is not DTFI on this hole. In fact, he not only double bunkers his shots along the fairway, he pulls off the incredible triple bunker. It's starting to spit rain a bit and I can hear him cursing at himself from a distance of 100 yards.
Meanwhile I hit my second shot and Harry gives me another fist bump. The wind is ridiculous by now. Swirling so hard on the fairway that it's actually a little hard to walk straight into it. Harry and I push our way up to where Tardio is standing, staring down at his third ball to land in the sand. The ball is wedged up against the lip of the bunker and is almost impossible to play.
"Harry," Tardio says, "this ball is f'ed."
Harry looks at the ball then over at me and then back down at the ball. "Yep," he says, "I'm your caddy and that ball's f'ed."
We lose it. Our caddy has brought down the golfing house. Eventually we reach the green. I squat down and read the green and prepare to putt. Harry stops me. "You're aiming the wrong direction," he says.
He squats down beside me and shows a subtle break that I claim I can see even though I can't really see it. "Oh, yeah," I say. I manage a 6. Tardio takes a 9. Ouch. 12. My shot of the day comes on the par-4 12th. After a decent drive I'm facing an uphill lie on a hillside that I can't see over and the green is down below. (This is the picture from the first day's column where it looks like Harry and I are in deep consultation on the proper decision to make.)
Instead of being a pansy I decide to take a run at the green. I strike the ball and as soon as it takes off I can tell it's going to be good. I sprint up over the hill in time to see my second shot come within 10 feet of the hole. I yelp in glee. Then I miss the birdie putt. But I tap in for par. This is my second par. I'm walking on Sawgrass air.
13. My glee is extremely short-lived. On the par-3 13th, Harry sprints down the fairway to a point where he can tell us whether or not our shots are in good shape. From the tee-box we can't see the ground around the pin. I tee off first and the result is not good. At all. There's water to our left and my shot goes about 40 yards and dunks into the water. Everyone else gets the safe sign from Harry after their shots.
When we get closer to him, Tardio says, "How come you didn't give the incomplete sign after Clay's shot?"
"That shot wasn't worth a sign," Harry says. Eventually I manage a 6.
14. At the 14th tee box we catch up with a group of rich guys from New York who are smoking cigars and waving us through. I say they're rich because while we tee off they offer Harry $500 to jump into the water. Also, they're so drunk they can barely stand. I'm all for drinking, but not on a superb golf course (exception: at a charity scramble, get wasted). There's also a hot cart girl providing the New Yorkers with more beer as we prepare to tee off.
Since they're waving us through we all have to tee off in front of a crowd. This is the great golfing test; can you hit a decent shot when someone is being courteous enough to let you pass? All I ever want to do is make sure the ball's in the air and goes a long way. I don't even care about whether the ball goes straight. We all hit great opening shots. Once we're back in the cart Tardio turns to me. "I think the cart girl liked me," he says.
On the green I barely miss a par putt and settle for bogey. A sub-100 round is still possible.
15. On my second shot at the par-4 15th, I land in a pond. Tardio has equally bad luck. On his second shot Harry tells him to aim for the trees to the left of the green because the wind will push his ball down just beside the pin. Tardio does as he's instructed. And hits a great approach directly into the trees. The ball ricochets off the trunk of a tree and is nowhere close to the green. Harry watches the result and then says, "Hmmm, I've never seen that happen before."
I take a 6 and Tardio is still fuming when we get back into the cart. "I trust Harry so much that when he told me to hit a ball into the trees I did it without even thinking. Never again. Never."
16. On the par-5 16th, you get your first glimpse of the famous island green on 17. The right side of the fairway is the water that surrounds the island. I manage to string together a series of decent shots to eventually find myself with a par putt. Which I miss badly. I settle for a decent comeback bogey.
Meanwhile, Tardio is DTFI once again. He birdies the hole and comes back to the golf cart full of vim and vigor. "What if Harry said, 'Man, I really like Clay's Power Chambers.'"
17. And then the island came. We all pause for Harry to take individual pictures of us beside the sign for the famous island green. The green seems so tantalizingly close, just hovering out there at a little over 120 yards. "Back right Sunday pin placement," Harry says as if we needed any more trepidation.
The wind is swirling at least 20 mph and the rain is spitting down on us. It's like the Deadliest Catch TPC. Much discussion about the proper club to use ensues. I settle on a 7-iron. Tardio has honors after his birdie. He strikes the ball and it climbs high and true into the air and then comes to rest on the green, just 5 feet from the hole. For good measure, Tardio yells, "Get in the hole."
Later, in the TPC clubhouse, Tardio will stand in front of the list of players who have gotten holes in one at 17 and say, "My name was almost here."
Craig, the Purina V.P., is next. He airmails one over the back of the green. We watch the ball plop into the water. Then it's my turn. Immortality awaits.
I drive my tee into the ground, place the ball down, step back and take a practice swing. Make a small show of gauging the wind. Then I take one last glimpse at the island green before focusing on my ball. After the dunked approach on the last par 3, 13, the last thing I want to do is hit a shot that never even has a chance to reach the green. Or miss my ball completely. I take back my club, thinking, 'Power Chambers don't fail me now,' as I follow through and make contact with the ball.
My shot is less than majestic. It doesn't ever get particularly high in the air and no one around us ever has that moment where they scan the heavens and can't see its regal arc. Instead it's just a ball, just a ball sailing over a small pond and no one knows whether the shot has enough gas to actually make it to the green. I have a moment to contemplate what leaving a 120-yard shot short would actually feel like.
"Go, go," I hear myself saying. Harry and Tardio join in. Then, mercifully, my shot lands short of the green, on the front fringe and hangs there. On the front fringe that is no more than five feet wide. I've hit the island green!
"Nice shot," says Harry.
Nice shot, indeed. Only I'm left with a terrifying pitch up onto the green. As I approach my shot I don't even want to step on the grass around it lest the disturbance cause the ball to roll back into the water. I stand looking at it, and then, without even a practice swing, stand over the ball and pitch.
It lands perfectly about 8 feet from the hole. (Tardio had already marked his ball fearing the calamity of my miss-hit striking his ball and knocking both of us off the green). Then, wonder of wonders, I step up and sink the putt. Tardio slides his birdie putt just past the hole and taps in. Amazingly, we've both parred the island green.
18. On the cart ride to the par-4 18th we're both telling island green war stories already. About the wind, about the putts, about the rain, about the difficulty of gauging distance, about how if we were coming down the stretch of the TPC on Sunday and needed a par to lock up the win we'd be golden. You name it, we're patting ourselves on the back for it.
On 18, I step up and nail a drive in the direction of the palatial Sawgrass clubhouse. While I'm marveling at the view, Craig, the Purina V.P., turns to Tardio and says, "Don't ever let Clay take any lessons, they'll blow up his game." I don't hear about this until later.
In the meantime, I'm too busy working my way down the fairway and trying to get in under the 100 bar. I entered 18 at 93, and now I'm lying 4 sitting 15 feet away from the hole. I step up and drop the longest putt of the day. Bang! A 98.
Meanwhile, Tardio is attempting to line up his final shot. "Is this going to break?" he asks Harry.
Harry, sarcastically in Tardio's voice replies, "Is this going to break?" He turns to the rest of us and throws up his arms, "It's the TPC, yeah, it's going to break." Tardio sinks the putt and finishes with an 83.
Yep, I shot a 98 but for the rest of my life, the Power Chambers and I parred the island green on 17. And not even Verne Lundquist or his doppelganger Ben Franklin can ever take that away from me.