My friend Bruce Pearlman and I played in a Member-Member golf tournament at The Golf Club of Georgia this past weekend. I had one of those rare moments in life that ABC Sports use to refer to as "The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat." It happened like this.
We were one of seventy-two, two-man teams organized in nine flights ranked by golf handicap. I'm an 11.0 handicap and we were in the 8th flight (next to last...so our expectations weren't that high.) The tournament was played over two days and was essentially a "best-ball" format net after handicap.
We both played great the first day and what's more (the real secret to success in "best-ball") we never had a bad hole at the same time. We shot a net 62, or 10 under par, and lead our flight by four strokes after day one. The highlight of the day was my partner Bruce Pearlman's natural "EAGLE" on the 18th hole of the Lakeside course (a net double-eagle or 3 under par for a single hole.) It was awesome and the approach shot was probably the winning shot for us.
On day two, we got a little defensive on the Creekside course (a much harder course) trying to protect our lead but we still managed to eek out a net 2 under par 70, thanks to my short irons and Bruce's putting. That was good enough to win our flight and put us in the playoffs.
We were the last team to finish and get back to the clubhouse. And, because we hadn't really expected to be in the playoffs we were a little stunned. The format was to divide the nine flights into two halves (top five by handicap, and bottom four by handicap) and then have the winner of each half play in the finals, both playing Lakeside's 18th hole in an elimination. The format was alternate shots so there was lots of strategy about who hits first, etc.
We decided that I would hit the tee-ball. All four of the flight winners in our half hit relatively poor tee-shots, including me, mainly because we'd been waiting too long and were nervous. The other three competitors in our group had to chip out of trouble and then lay-up in three because they couldn't reach the green. Bruce managed to get our ball slightly further than the rest, it was sitting 215-220 yards from the whole. So we had to decide whether to go for it or not?
Bruce wasn't sure it was such a good idea to go for it seeing what the others had already done. It seemed a little risky. But I decided to go for it. That was the "thrill of victory" moment for me of the tournament. I decided to go with a five-wood (a good decision, I was pumped) and I hit it perfectly. That may have been the best shot I've ever hit in 50+ years of playing golf. But the greatest thrill of all was hearing that crowd of my friends at the club roar when my ball landed on the green in three, just 10 feet from the hole. That was an awesome feeling.
We won that first round, ended up in the finals and got beat by a much younger, and much lower handicap team. We gave them a run for their money and we could have won it all, but in the end Bruce and I were happy with how we played and happy to have had such a great experience.
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