I own a belt buckle that I purcahsed on Ebay a while back. It's black and white (go figure) with some fancy looking designs and it has the number "63" printed right in the middle. A lot of people comment on my belt buckles as they are pretty eccentric to say the least, and because they always have a meaning...So when I wear the 63 buckle, people ask "What's the 63 stand for?" I simply respond "Best round ever..." referring to my 8 under par 63 at The University of Texas Golf Club last fall. I made 9 birdies that day against only a single bogey, my best round at UT by 3 shots. The one thing I remember about this round was an uncanny ability to get the ball in the hole on the greens. It seemed like anything inside of 15 feet was automatic.
Thursday afternoon I embarked on a playing lesson at Avery Ranch with a guy named Steve. Steve is golfer like most. He has some natural ability, with some classic flaws that are fixable when he focuses and doesn't let his mind wander from the task. If he practiced more (on the golf course) I believe he could eliminate these flaws more often and reach his goal of breaking 80 quite easily. Especially since he is a pretty darn good putter...
As we approached the first tee at Avery, Steve just went up one set of tees to the blue tee, which sort of disappointed me for two reasons. One, Steve is good enough to play the golds there, and two, I always welcome the challenge of playing the entire golf course. But oh well, he's the one paying for the lesson, so he makes the call. I make a solid par on #1, Steve stumbles a little out of the gate, but we're off and running. On #2, I started what I couldn't have even begun to imagine at the time. A putting clinic that even I would have had to see to believe. A 30 footer for birdie on two, followed by a 60 foot eagle lag for an easy birdie on three, two more birdies on 5 & 6 from 15 and 12 feet respectively. Another bomb on 8 for a birdie, and it was all capped off with a solid 12 footer poured right in the center on 9 for another birdie. Just like that a front nine 30! Steve commented jokingly about how clear it was why I was the teacher and he was the student. Then he notified me that he had enough for the day and was calling it quits. Again, I was a little disappointed, because I wanted to see how low I could go. After all, the front nine is usually the harder side at Avery Ranch...
I said my goodbyes and jetted to the 10th tee by myself to continue. Another two putt for birdie on the relatively easy par 5 tenth...Now 7 under through 10, almost uncharted territory and I'm suddenly very aware of the blood in my veins and the oxygen in my lungs, or lackthereof...I join three new guys on 11, make a good swing but catch a poor hop and have about 40 feet for birdie. Again! A bomb drops and now I'm 8 under par! I promptly follow this with a solid 7 footer for birdie on 12 to go 9 in the red, a number I have never reached before on any golf course. Now the blood is pumping faster for sure, and I'm no longer breathing involuntarily.
At this point, my three guys also decide to throw in the towel, which may have been a blessing. Alone again, I start to talk to myself, outloud I remind myself that although I've never been this far under par before, I have been close, a lot of times. So it's really nothing new. I needed to dig deep, cherish these exciting moments, and make the most of them. Focus even harder on every single shot if possible. After all, this is why we play the game of golf, to see how low we can go. People talk about what a big difference there is between 100 and 99, or 80 and 79 because it's a milestone to break 80 or break 100, etc. Well let me tell you, on this day I was 9 under with some golf course still in front of me and I think I may have considered sacrificing one of my limbs to reach double digits, at the very least, a finger...
Two pars on the next two left me with mixed emotions. I hadn't given any shots back to the golf course, but a glimmer of hope for a 59 was basically gone. I would need to birdie the last 4 holes. I started that train with a great up & down on 15 for birdie. I kept it going with a better one on the short par 4 sixteenth. I was now 11 under par. Speechless, Breathless, Salivaless, and I can't remember the last time I was this excited. I even still had a chance for 59 if I birdied the last two holes.
Unfortunately I stumbled on the penultimate hole, pushing my approach slightly, leaving a deceptively slow, downhill putt, which I left short. I struck my remaining 6 footer for par very well, but it slid painfully by the hole on the left edge and I was back to 10 under. It sounds even funnier to me now than it did at the time, saying it aloud to myself..."BACK to ten under par"
I missed the fairway on the final hole, and promptly missed the green from the fairway bunker on the right. It's easy to feel like you deserve to hit a bad shot sometimes when you've hit so many good ones throughout the day. It's a hard concept to explain, but anyone who's ever played golf knows the feeling of "owing a few" to the course. Well I may or may not have owed a few, but I wasn't giving any of them back this day. A rock solid chip came to rest just 6 inches from the hole for a cinch par, and my new best round ever, a 10 under par 62. I guess I need a new belt...
