Before today’s
post, a quick plea for donations to my annual Tour de Cure Bike ride up in
Northern VA. I’m riding a metric century, about 65 miles, to raise awareness
and funds to find a cure for that horrible disease, Diabetes.
Diabetes touches
every family in the US these days and a cure is imminent but we need to put
some money behind the effort. Please click the link below to donate to my ride!
If you ride yourself, consider joining me or at a ride near you. Much obliged!
Now, on with today's post!
Watching the
Masters golf tournament this past weekend reminded me why I’ve loved the game
for over 50 years. People who don’t even play the game watch this event and
with very good reason.
Augusta National,
where The Masters is played, is one of the most beautiful golf courses in the
world. It’s also one of the most difficult courses to play although I’m told,
by amateurs that have played it, that it’s much easier for higher handicaps to
play than they expect; most will typically shoot a better than their average
score on it.
But, wow, do the
pros have a hard time with it! If you don’t play golf it’s hard to understand,
but the game is one that humbles everyone that plays at some point. Even the
best in the world are made to look stupid on occasion.
At “The National,”
as it’s called by the locals, the wind swirls around, the greens are severely
sloped and ridiculously slick. If the player doesn’t place his ball in a
particular spot on each hole, he typically has a difficult shot to execute all
while handling the pressure of a major championship. (The pros call this getting out of line;
interestingly, it’s the same description that pool players talk about which
also makes for a more difficult shot – yet another similarity between the two.)
When it’s your turn
to play at Augusta, you have to be fully committed to making the shot you’ve
planned. Failure to do so, causes problems. Big problems.
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| 2015 Master Champ |
Such was the
problem for young Jordan Spieth on Sunday, the defending champion. He was
cruising along having birdied the last 4 holes on the outward nine, assuming a
five shot lead. Wayward drives at the tenth and eleventh holes resulted in
bogies which shrunk his lead to three.
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| # 12 |
The twelfth hole is
short par 3 that terrorizes the pros. The green is shallow with a bunker in
front and back and Rae’s Creek running in front of it all. The only play,
according to 80 years of wisdom that make up The Masters, is to play to the fat
of the green and escape with a par.
Jordan, in the
middle of his swing, decided to hit a slight fade directly toward the hole. Changing
your mind like this happen to all golfers (pool players, too!) and it almost
never causes good things to happen.
This time was no different.
When I heard the
sound the shot made, while watching the telecast, I knew it was in the water. I
said, “Oh no, he hit it fat!” This means he struck slightly behind the ball
causing it to not go as far as planned.
Since he was aiming slightly to the
right side of the hole, that meant it would hit the bank in front of the green
and spin back into the water. That’s exactly what happened.
Jordan had the
pained look on his face that we all get when caught speeding. “Okay. You got
me. Shouldn’t have been doing that. How much is this going to cost me?” In this
case, a one stroke penalty and hit another ball from his choice of locations.
His next play had
him going to the drop zone where preceded to hit his next shot (his third) even
fatter. The ball flew directly into the creek. He hit it so badly, he was holding
his hand out to his caddie for another ball before the first one even landed.
He dropped again
and hit his fifth shot with a little extra energy. That caused it to fly over
the green and into the back bunker. It was probably good at this point that he
got to walk for a couple of minutes because he needed to burn off some energy.
From the bunker, he
blasted out to about five feet and holed the putt for a 7. Those last two shots
were incredibly clutch, frankly, to stop the bleeding. He was now in third
place having spent 6 shots to par over the last 3 holes while his opponents up
ahead had made some birdies of their own.
Tighten Up
Here’s what I love
about the game, though. It wasn’t this meltdown that we’d just witnessed it was
the mettle and strength of character he showed from there back to the
clubhouse. (Don’t misunderstand, the meltdown was entertaining. Hackers love to
see pros doing what we do, from time to time, just so we know their actually
human. But Spieth is such a good guy, I’m not sure anyone enjoyed watching it.
He’s that well liked!)
From there, he
immediately pulled himself together and birdied the next hole. He added one
more at the fifteenth, too, and managed his game beautifully over the remaining
difficult stretch although he did suffer a bogey at seventeen while trying to
make up ground. In any case, he ended up tied for second.
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| Annual jacket ceremony |
He also suffered
the ignominy of having to place the winner’s green jacket on Englishman Danny
Willett, the golfer who played his ass off with a bogey free round to win only a
week after becoming a father for the first time. (Augusta is full of these
“storylines” that the announcers are constantly talking about. It’s nice and
all but it’s just a little too smarmy for MB who goes shopping whenever she
hears the Masters
Music play on the TV.)
In any case,
chapeau to Danny Willett for his first Masters title. Huge props to Jordan Spieth who is destined to win
many more major titles in his career. He has the mental toughness of Tiger
Woods in his heyday and I was sure I’d never say that about anybody else, ever.
Golf Story with a
little bit of gambling
I was having a
discussion at pool league Monday night about the Masters and we got on the
topic of gambling at golf, something I did a bit of many years ago. It took me
back to my high school golf team days and one of the craziest people I’ve ever
known, Curt Hetterman.
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| Forearms, matey! |
Curt was a year
older than the rest of the seniors and as a result he was able to buy beer
because the drinking age was 18 back then. Curt was also about five foot seven
with Popeye forearms and liked to wager on golf games. Proposition bets were
his specialty and these are plentiful on a golf course with targets galore.
We had just
finished a school match and three of us were sitting outside the clubhouse,
discussing our respective matches. About 20 yards away was the twelfth tee, a
par 3 of about 165 yards.
Curt had just
finished saying he’d parred the hole during his match, and then dismissed it by
saying he could, “par it without a club” if he wanted. I stopped him and asked
him to repeat that.
“I said I can par
that sumbitch without a club if I want to.” He repeated.
“Want to put some
money on it?”
I said, “I’ve got
$5 that says you can’t, Curt.” (This was 40+ years ago and I was making $1.75
an hour at a part time job. That bet represented 3 hours of work so it wasn’t
the insignificant wager it seems, today.)
Grantham, my
co-captain, agreed and said he had another $5 for that bet, too.
Curt said, “Let’s
go!” and we all stood up and walked to the tee box.
When we got there I
asked how he planned to do it and he told us he would only throw or roll the
ball, and that he’d stand wherever the ball came to rest for the next throw. We
agreed to those rules and the game was on.
Curt took a running
start and launched a throw towards the green. The ball bounced and rolled,
coming to a stop about 35 yards short of the green. We followed it and watched
carefully as Curt stooped down, picked up the ball, keeping his feet behind
where the ball came to rest, and then tossed it towards the green. It rolled up
about twelve feet above the hole, leaving a downhill putt that would break
about a foot from left to right. I figured his odds of rolling it into the hole
were near zero and Grantham and I grinned at each other.
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| Shaq demonstrates the proper method |
Curt walked up to the
ball, set his feet behind it, picked it up and held it up like he was going to
shoot a free throw with it. He sighted and tossed the ball into the hole on the
fly.
Grantham and I just
gaped in awe at it and then started howling about what a lucky toss that was.
Curt grinned.
“Tell you what
guys. I’ll give you a chance to win your money back. Double or nothing I can do
it 5 in a row from a step closer.”
Grantham and I
couldn’t say “You’re on!” fast enough.
Curt took a step
closer so that he was 9 or 10 feet away. I tossed the ball back to him and he
proceeded to throw it in the hole, on the fly, 5 times in a row. Grinning all
the while.
I’d never seen
anything like it. I reached into my pocket, peeled a ten dollar bill off, and
handed it to him with a rather gruff, “I’m done.”
Curt grinned at
Grantham and said, “Want to another chance?”
Grantham said,
“Damn right, but not that throw-it-in-the-hole shit!”
Curt pointed to the
bunker next to the green and said, “Put a ball in there, anywhere you want, and
I’ll go double or nothing I can get it up and down from there.”
Up and down means
that Curt would be required to go from the bunker to the hole in only 2 shots,
hence, up and down.
Grantham grinned
and said, “Go get your sand wedge, Ace!” He marched into the bunker, stood in
the middle of it, pushed aside a pile of sand with his foot, dropped the ball
into the gap he’d created, and pushed the sand back over the ball.
Curt said, “Hold
on, I have to be able to see it at least!”
Grantham agreed, bent down
and hunted around with his fingers until he had uncovered about a dime-sized area
of the ball. It was at least a couple of inches below the level of the
surrounding sand; it was absolutely the worst buried lie I’d ever seen.
Curt grabbed his
sand wedge, walked into the bunker and took a stance, wiggling his feet back
and forth to get a good grip with his spikes. Once he was set, he looked up at
Grantham and grinned, waggled a couple of times, and then took a huge swing at
the sand covering the ball. Honestly, if I ever swung that hard, even in my
youth, parts of my body would have sheared off.
There was an
enormous explosion of sand from the fury of Curt’s swing.
Out of the middle of
it, a golf ball sailed up in the air, falling gently to the ground. It began
rolling towards the hole, coming to rest about 18 inches away.
This shot remains
to this day, the greatest golf shot I’ve ever seen, live.
Grantham shook his
head, reached into his pocket and peeled off a twenty. He crumpled it up into a
ball and threw it at Curt who was calmly raking the bunker, fixing the excavation he'd just managed. He turned around
when it hit him and said with a grin, “Let’s go get a beer.”
Grantham said,
“You’re buying, you sonofabitch.”
I said, “Yeah. With
our money.”
| Time for a beer |
