Notes:
- on # 2, Partner Joe hit his usual high shot, but straighter than usual, it landed halfway between the traps that guard the front of the green, left & right, and bounded off the hard turf straight uponto the green, 12 feet from the pin -- while the foursome in front of us was still putting. They were in no danger but it might well have been unsettling. Joe has reached the traps before, but he's not trying to reach the green, just to leave a pitch to the pin. I waited till that group had cleared the green before I hit, I always do. I am trying to make an ace on that hole, but the ball could go anywhere, left-to-right, I never know. This time I hit a line-drive straight at the inner corner of the left trap, but the ball tiptoed around it, thru the rough, to 15 feet from the pin, left of Joe's. We neither made the eagle, but both had tap-in birdies, which is at least partially satisfying . . .
- Joe birdied #3, too, which is my favorite parlay on this course. I on the other hand flubbed my ball into the woods on the left, short of the water, and it was all I could do to make bogie. A 3 on 3 is fairly unremarkable, being the shortest par 4 on the course. A bogie, thus, a terrible humiliation.
- on #7, Joe had reached the green, below the hole on what many hold to be the hardest green on the course, and even his 8 footer is intimidating. But after consultation, he calmly nudged his putt up hill 3 feet left of the pin, and saw it drip down in thru the side-door.
- 3 birdies in 9 holes is the standard of excellence, the McGuffin competition aside, in which Joe did not even win his point against friend Dave, a consistent personal-par maker with a 12 handicap. Hard to beat.
- 5 birdies as a team is pretty good, too.
- on #9, I technically had a chance for eagle, but it was short-sided to the pin, a little bit in the deep, dark rough behind the green, which slopes away from the fairway on the back, where the pin was. Meanwhile, my opponent chipped in from the other side of the back-bunker, for his meaningless birdie (within the McGuffin Competition). I have no confidence anymore chipping such a short shot (Visions of TC Chen in the Masters always run thru my head), and I have bladed more than a couple clear across the green, so I used a putter, with no confidence at all it would go in, but I had a only a uphill kneeknocker left for birdie.
