So, I'm standing on the tee box for the par 3 Number Nine hole at Bird Creek Golf Course in Port Austin. It's a beautiful June night and five of us are playing a round for Ladies' League. I have to hit a drive across the creek (downward) and then slightly upward to the green. It's a short hole and I usually lose a ball in the creek and have to take a drop.
Tonight is different.
Shot 1: My drive sails across the creek (thank you, instructor Brian Natzel, for teaching me how to drive and thank you, Martha Babcock, for telling me to go get lessons!) and into the left sand bunker. Hmm. I can do this, I'm thinking.
Shot 2: Out of the bunker with a sand wedge and onto the fringe of the green on the high, north side. Hmm, getting better.
Shot 3: Onto the green. Holy Cow! This is really getting better!
Shot 4: I putt the ball into the hole. I'm one over for a bogey, but, thanks to the handicap that I carry, I can subtract 2 strokes. That gives me 2 strokes for the hole and I'm now one under -- a birdie.
Now none of this takes a Tiger Woods-ish rocket scientist to figure out. It's just significant to me. For, in my first summer of taking golf seriously, I finally remember each shot and can recite the specifics somewhat. That's so cool! I can't tell you about specific plays in baseball at Comerica Park even though I watch lots of baseball. I've seen the Michigan State Spartan football team play countless times and there are no wonderful images of caught passes or quarterback sneaks in my memory photographs.
But this summer, finally, and maybe only for a few weeks, I can see the evening shadows on the Number Nine green clearly and I know that I can get a drive over that creek again and that's totally cool for someone who just about quit golf (for the umpteenth millioneth time) in early June.
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