An odd golf day

I went out for a round of golf at the Wasatch Mountain course this morning. I was playing with two fellow hacks, Doug Drexler and Bill Benson. They don't bother keeping score, which means their only handicap is their golf game.

I thought I was doing well. One the fifth hole, I hit low on the flag stick on my first shot of a par 3. This is unusually close for me, even though it rolled 12 feet past and I settled for a par. I was happy.

Then Bill steps up on the 13th hole, another par 3. He hits a nice shot and as it's flying, I jokingly say "It's in the hole". Well, it was. It hit, bounced once and disappeared for a hole in one. The odds for an average golfer hitting a hole in one are about 12,000 to 1. Neither Doug nor I had ever seen it happen. Yeah Bill!! Of course he couldn't turn in his score card, since he wasn't even keeping score.


Trying not to be outdone, Doug gets up on the next hole, a par 5, and hits his second shot. It roles inches past the pin and stops about four feet behind it. If it had hit the pin and dropped, it would have been the extraordinarily rare double eagle. The odds against those are quoted at over a million to one.

In the end, I felt like a loser, only hitting a flag stick. I did shoot better than I have been (94) and somehow managed to shoot par on five par-3's in a row.

An interesting golf day. To make it better, we finished, got in the car, and the rain started. We were clearly meant to be out there.