American Eagle

I played golf 2 days in a row!!

Yesterday I wrote about a morning round on July 3. When I got home my wife suggested that I try to play again on the 4th. I was able to get the same 6:10 tee time on the same course. Hilariously, I hit the same perfect 6 iron off the 1st tee, followed by the same half shank, but this time I escaped with bogey.

A few holes into the round it was clear that my game was better that yesterday, but I was still not scoring well. I bogeyed the first two and scrambled for par on my third hole.

I came to the first par 5, my 4th hole, on the back 9 at Murphy Creek Golf Course. I hit a big drive over some fairway bunkers and ended up in nearly the same spot as I had been the day before, with only 175ish to the pin and sitting up in short rough. The green is kidney shaped with a bunker in the cut out middle and with a hard ridge behind the bunker that basically separates the green into two sides. They hadn’t moved the pins between rounds, so both days it was on the right side of the green. Yesterday, I got a flyer with an 8 iron and ended up in a bad spot behind the left side of the green having to chip over the ridge. I wasn’t guaranteed to get another flyer, but I certainly didn’t want to end up there again, so I chose to go hard at a 9 iron today. It started right on line with the pin, and my heart was racing… until it dropped directly in the massive bunker. No flyer today.

I made my way to the bunker and found a pretty good lie, but the shot would be blind given a huge lip. I picked my target, dropped my hands, opened the face, turned, an turned, and the ball came out right where I was hoping. I heard one of my playing partner yell, and hoped I had made a blind eagle, but this wouldn’t be the case. The ball apparently flirted with the cup, but it ran by 10 feet or so. I hit the putt I wanted, but not the one the golf gods wanted, so I left with my second frustrating par in a row on this hole.

After possibly spoiling a family’s 4th of July breakfast with a wayward tee shot on the next hole, I came to a long dogleg right par 5 with water down the right side of the entire hole. It’s listed as 560 from the tees I was playing but you can only bite off so much of the dogleg, so it’s normally a three shot hole. I hit another good drive and found my ball in the fairway with 240 to the pin.

One of my playing partners said “You can reach from here with no problem”, and I had to assure him that there could be problems. Adding to the water hazard on the right, the green is built into a hillside with a large bunker in front and another over the back. There’s another ridge in the middle of this green, though not a severe as the previous par 5, so shots landing on either side of the ridge bounce that direction. The pin was tucked just over the front right bunker.

I decided on a 3 iron, and I was able to shake off the thoughts of previous 3 irons gone awry. I took my stance, navigated too many swing thoughts, but made good contact and sent a laser beam towards the right side of the green.

Due to the large front bunker, we couldn’t see where the ball ended up, but it did carry to the green. My playing partners were somehow more invested in this than me and one of them pulled his range finder to see if he could tell where the ball was. It’s funny that no one would ever pull binoculars to track a 3 iron off a tee on a par 4, but people love to see someone go for a par 5 in two. As it turns out, my ball had rolled through to the back fringe.

When we got to the green the story became more clear. My laser beam had landed within 3 feet of the pin (as the image below shows), and rolled out 25 feet or so to the back fringe. Thankfully, this putt was far enough from the hole that I didn’t expect to make it, so I didn’t have to fight off all the demons from my shorter putt yesterday. The mildly downhill putt would break hard from right to left. I picked a line, said a prayer, and started it off to test my hypothesis. It approached the hole with all the finesse of a Denver airport shuttle train, and, in like fashion, it slammed on the breaks as it hit the flagstick and went in for an Independence Day eagle.

Near albatross from 240 yards.

There’s something about an eagle. Unlike birdies, you never expect to make eagles. Nobody has ever made an eagle and thought “let’s go eagle the next 3 holes”. You understand that there’s always a bit of luck involved, no matter how well you played it. Even the most stone faced of pros have a hard time not celebrating a double circle on the card. I had texted that picture to half of my contacts with some variation of “4th of July Eagle!” before ever leaving the green.

There’s a lot of talk about the ABFU (After Birdie F’ Up) in golf, but now I was tasked with avoiding the more daunting AEFU, and I was in just the place for one. The next hole is a narrow, medium length par 4 with a very well protected green. I’ve probably doubled this hole more over the years than I have par or bogeyed it, but on this day, I hit a 3 iron (no binoculars) down the middle, and a 9 iron to the front of the green, and escaped with a par.

I had survived the AEFU… or so I thought. The 17th hole (my eighth for the day) at Murphy Creek is a beast of a par 3. I was playing the Blue tees, which are listed around 6900 yards on the scorecard. (Note that there are forbidden Black tees which can play 7500 yards.) Roughly 230 yards of the Blue distance is attributed to the 17th hole, and the distance isn’t the only difficulty on this monster. The green is huge, but there is a large ridge that runs left to right across the middle of the green. Short of the ridge, the green slopes towards the tees, but beyond it, some parts of the green actually slope away from the player, so good luck stopping your long iron or wood. To the left of the green is a tall hill complete with a grass bunker, and to the right of the green there is a thin bunker than does a half-assed job of catching shot from going into a brush filled ditch.

The pin was on the front of the green, so I chose a 4 iron, and I hit it right where I was looking. Holding my pose after the shot (in case anyone wanted to get a Ben Hogan-like photo of me) wasn’t enough to prevent my ball from jumping over the ridge and running all the way over the green. I was left with a tough to judge pitch, and I played right into its traps. I’ll spare you the details other than saying I chipped twice and putted twice, and walked off with a double bogey 5. I suppose it’s fitting that AEFUs can happen 2 holes later.

I recovered with a solid par at the difficult 18th, and I finished my round with a 39, 5 shots better than the ugly day before. I gained a lasting memory with the eagle. Hopefully the follow up double will not be lasting, but I know it’ll be on my mind the next few times I play the hole. I don’t know when I’ll be able to play again due to some upcoming travels, but I’m very thankful for these two rounds.