A worthy opponent!
Today, oh joy, oh rapture, I finally had a buddy to play with on the course! Woo-hoo! Sad and pitiful as it may sound, I've played all my rounds this season all by my lonesome. It's not that I don't have any friends, thought I don't, really, but most of the few stalwart and long-suffering friends I do have are not golfers But today my old pal Calvin, who lives in faraway Concord, NH, had an appointment here in Brattleboro (it was with his shrink cuz he's crazy as a three-dollar bill) and he had time to play a quick round before he had a showing of a house to do back home. He's something of a real-estate magnate there in central New Hampshire; Concord's DJT, if you will, though there the similarity most certainly ends.
Calvin and I were roommates at Ithaca College, back in the mid-17th century, and we remain very close. A few years back when I was going through a particularly difficult time in my life, he somehow got wind of it and called me, saying "you idiot, why didn't you tell me you were having troubles so I could be there for you, you dummy?" and visited and hung out and brought good cheer and was truly a Hero.
So today he shows up at my estate and we eat a pbj, on astonishingly yummy bread that my daughter made from scratch with her very own two hands, which I find amazing, and we headed off to the exclusive and hilly Brattleboro Country Club for a quick nine.
We played the treacherous back nine, which was perhaps not the best decision, in hindsight, but up for a challenge we were, and we set off on the long, endless par 5 tenth hole. Calvin gripped and ripped and put the ball beautifully in the middle of the fairway. Unfortunately it was the fairway for the adjacent ninth hole. Oops. Going to fetch it, he had to do that thing that you do when you hit it on the wrong fairway, which is to stand there hoping you're invisible to the dudes who are teeing off on that hole, and praying they don't bonk you in the noggin with their tee shot. Embarrassing. Myself, I hit a lovely tee shot, a little to the right but a good distance, one of those where you mutter to yourself, "OK, I'll take that." My second shot, with a hybrid, was extremely excellent, going well over the rise in the middle of the fairway and rolling to a stop about 60 yards from the green. "I'll take that, too, any day of the week!" I then hit a magnificent wedge shot and popped it on the green in three. What a shot it was! High in the air, straight, a soft bounce on the green and there it sat, all happy and proud of itself. Good ball! Two putts gave me a par! Hellz yeah! A par on 10! Holy cow! I can count the number of times I've gotten par on that hole with one finger. Calvin struggled a bit, no doubt enthralled and a little intimidated by my sheer skillful golfery, and ended with a 7, still not a bad score on that long hole.
Eleven is a steep uphill slog, a par 4 that for me is often a par-forever. I decided beforehand to think about course management on this hole and use an iron off the tee to get it onto the fairway. It worked well when I was visualizing it last night, but in reality I hit it off to the left where I usually hit it but just not as far. Still, a good chip and a fine putt gave me a bogey, and about then I was thinking championship round, a personal best, a round to be envied by the likes of Phil, Rory and my man Jon Rahm. Poor Calvin flailed a bit on this very tricky hole, spent a lot of time negotiating the very slopey and difficult green and ended up with an 8. How about that? I'm actually playing better than Calvin today! Did I expect that? No I did not!
Twelve is a pretty straightforward, if somewhat bumpy par 4, the green hiding coyly behind a mound or two and protected by a couple of obnoxious bunkers. I hit a spectacular drive with my 3-iron, straight and true, and I'm thinking I'll buy one of those spiffy Tiger Woods caps, with the nifty TW logo on the front. I warned Calvin before his drive that it's best to avoid missing left since there's a sharp dropoff down to the vicinity of the 15th hole and there's a bunch of trees lurking menacingly over there as well, just to make things even more awkward. Calvin nodded sagely and promptly hit it sharply to the left, down the embankment, the ball bouncing out of view. Calvin, Calvin, Calvin, must I really explain to you that the point of the game is to hit the ball on the fairway you're looking at, not the one several holes ahead? You can't play that ball when we get to that hole. My poor ex-roomie fought mightily to get out of that mess, one shot shocking and endangering some worms that might have poked their heads out of the dirt, getting lost in the trees and generally not having a grand time with old No. 12 at all. Myself, I barely missed a bogie with a putt that I really should have made, and I'm sailing along pretty nicely at this point, having myself a good old time indeed.
Thirteen is a funky little par 3, reads longer than it is, which would explain why used too much club and almost overshot the green. Could have had a par if I'd putted better, but as they say, golf is a great game half the time, the other half is putting. Settled for a bogey. Calvin hit it nicely, pin high just off the green, but then decided putting is fun so why not do it a whole lot on one green, and ended with a 5.
Next is 14, a hole I've had a lot of trouble with in the past and intimidates me mightily, so much that I had to take two mulligans just to get out of the tee box. Urgh. Calvin hit it pretty well, taking my advice for once and keeping it nicely to the right for a good angle to the green. You have to hit it to the right because there is a fetid, stinking swamp that protects the green if you are approaching from the left side of the fairway, which is where I was sitting after finally managing to hit a tee shot that went further than eleven yards, eight inches. We paused for a while to let the fellows behind us play through, and I lost my concentration a bit (sure, that was it) and when I finally took a deep breath and hit my 6 iron, planning to loft it over the bubbling bog onto the green, it didn't loft very much at all, in fact it was a pretty insipid shot, and Calvin, who was watching, said "Oops," and that was the end of that ball. I hit another one from in back of the quicksand pit and of course it settled nicely into the sand trap aside the green. Oh how I dislike this hole. I finally got it in the hole, but by this time my score on this hole had to be measured in exponential numbers, so I invoked Adam's rule and gave myself an 8, a double par, which is kind of like the mercy rule in Little League, and moved on. I may never play that hole again. I hate it. Killed my round, killed my momentum, killed all the confidence I was carrying through the first four holes. Stupid 14.
Fifteen is a nice wide par 4, generous landing area but they do have powerful ball magnets installed in the woods on either side so it's oddly difficult to hit the middle of the fairway. Calvin hit his tee shot, said, "Oh, leaking right, leaking right, leaking really really far right." My tee shot wasn't bad but second shot sucked and then I had to fight my way out of a bunker to settle for a disheartening 7. Calvin got a 6, recovering nicely from his leaking tee shot.
Sixteen, another funky par 3, Cal hit a lovely tee shot right on the green but, again, decided to chase his ball around with the putter. I drifted left, chipped on but 3-putted and we both walked away with lousy fives.
17 is a pretty hole. Off the high vantage point of the tee box it slopes steeply down to a bit of a bottleneck dogleg, from there a nice little 9 iron to the green for a par. Sure.
I warned Calvin to stay to the left and not get hung up on the right behind what I think of as the Abenaki Burial Mound. Which he did, most ably. A beautiful shot. I drew a little star on the scorecard so I'd remember what a lovely shot it was. Then I hit my tee shot. Wasn't very good, and of course it leaked right, so that the Burial Mound was between me and the green. "No prob," said Calvin, you can do this, just hit it over!" Right. So I hit it and it did not go well. Right into the slope of the little mountain. (See below.)
Meanwhile, Calvin had played smoothly and professionally and ended up with a neat bogey. I limped away with a 7, or maybe an 8, and nightmares for years to come.
Eighteen is a nice, friendly par 4, pronounced a "pretty" hole by by buddy Calvie, who went on to bogey it while I struggled to end the round with a 7.
All in all an entertaining round, sure was nice to play with another human being, and we ended up with identical scores which I'm not going to share because they're nothing to brag about, but hey, we're bad-golfers and we know it but we still have a grand old time on a beautiful course on a sunny day.
Hit 'em straight!
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