B.F redux - and, the greatest shot in golf history

 It was on the fairway of the ninth hole at the Bellows Falls Country Club, after another average round of bad-golf. 

I'd hit a pretty decent shot off the tee, which got me just shy of the trees you see on the right side of the fairway. Picked up my 6-iron, my favorite iron these days for fairway work. Addressed the ball, took a breath, emptied my mind (never a difficult job) and thought only about hitting through the ball. Took what felt like a normal backswing, low and slow, and let fly. Simply, modestly and truthfully put, it was the single greatest golf shot in the history of the game. Perfectly shaped, long, straight as an arrow, absolutely gorgeous. Landed just shy of the green, just where I'd hoped to place it. It was not only the best shot of my round, it was probably the best shot of my entire golf journey. Man, it felt wonderful. Sounded great off the club, got a good followthrough, and the ball just arced and arced and flew and bounced perfectly. It was perfection. 

Forget Sergio Garcia hitting one out of a tree. Tiger's "better than most" putt on the 17th at TPC Sawgrass? Nothin'. No, my shot on Wednesday, June 3, 2021 at the Bellows Falls Country Club was simply the best ever. 

The rest of the round was nothing really special, though I was delighted to have the company of my wonderful and gorgeous wife, Julia, for a ride-along. Julia doesn't play, but occasionally when she has nothing better to do and there's no urgent work to be done in her garden or she's all listened out from her subversive anti-Putin blogs, she will accompany me for a round and enjoy the sunny weather. We had good fun toodling around the Bellows Falls nine. She's great to have along. When I hit a good shot, she always says things like "Wow!" "That went really far!" "Very good!" or  "Amazing!" When a shot goes awry she says "Aww," very gently and has no objection to me taking a Mulligan.  She also looks very fine in her jeans with huge yellow flowers on them and brightly colored shirt. And she has an uncanny ability to find lost golf balls. I hit a couple into the woods yesterday and she jumped right into the wilderness and recovered not only my ball but a couple of others as well; I ended up with more balls than I started out with. 

Funny game, golf. There's always something specific that goes wrong with a round. Bad putting, or chunking into the turf on fairway shots, or, as was the case yesterday, completely hopelessness and ineptitude off the tee. First tee, ball ended up in the middle of the ninth fairway. A group of guys playing the ninth hole pointed me to my ball and quite skillfully concealed their laughter. Second tee sliced off to the hard right. Third also sliced into the woods. Fourth, fuggetabboutit, two brand-new balls right out of the box were lost to the dragons and ogres that live in the deep ravine that must be crossed to get to the green. I finally had to hit it off the drop area, like a complete pussy. Fifth tee shot bounced into the sixth fairway. The sixth tee, there were some dudes playing a slow Wednesday round and perhaps enjoying an adult beverage or some other intoxicant so they let me play through, and with an audience I managed to hit it straight the first attempt. Seven went into the woods. Eight got caught by a ruthless ball magnet that they installed on a high bank right of the green. Then nine, a good drive, followed by the Greatest Golf Shot Ever. 

So just another normal day of bad-golfing, made much more pleasant by the presence of my spouse and made memorable by the shot that Tiger and Phil would envy. Seriously, if they could hit shots like that one they'd show real promise as professionals.