HOLE IN ONE TO BEGIN THE SEASON!

Tiger's Eye view, World Am 2013 Day 1

It’s April, and in the life of a tennis-pro-golf-lover in Fort Myers, Florida that means it’s time to break out the golf clubs. After the long hiatus from October through March, and generally the beginning of April, it is with amped up anticipation that I gazed upon my custom-made GigaGolf set last week.

Jon & Tara Parla at Passion Foundation Golf Outing 

When I received the email from Angie Guillette about the 5th Annual Tri-Town Passion Foundation Golf Outing, at Stoneybrook Golf & Country Club on May 16^th, my already elevated excitement about the upcoming golf season spiked upward. 

One of Passion Foundation's covered playgrounds

The event, a very worthy one benefitting the Passion Foundation’s efforts to fight Melanoma, is certainly relevant to tennis pros, and most of us who love the sweet outdoors of Southwest Florida.

Focusing before start of Day 1 of World Am

I had a month to get ready for the event after about a six-month layoff; that should be plenty of time! I was now officially in training for 

Riding along with Craig on Day 1 of World Am at Tiger's Eye

my third trip to the World Amateur Handicap Championship in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina later this summer, and I welcomed any and all opportunities to prepare for my favorite event of all time.

Many of my tennis students and non-golfer friends eye me with quizzical and dubious glances when I express my passion for the game of golf, perhaps the 

T. A. at Aberdeen

same way that I looked at my secretary and grad student some 27 years ago when they chatted excitedly about the game. My skepticism soon morphed into full flown infatuation, but that’s a story for another day.

World Am Day 2 at
Aberdeen Country Club

There’s no adequate way to explain one’s love for golf, it is an experience that can only be understood by a fellow (or sister) lover of the game, and perhaps only those fellow and sister lovers of the game will understand how golf can turn a really sour day into something sweetly special.

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Take yesterday for example, I was late for my first lesson (Sorry Frank...just something about that 7:30 Thursday lesson), when I opened my

T. A. warming up for Day 3 at TPC Myrtle Beach
World Am 2013

equipment shed, I found that some unnamed creep (I have a suspect) had gone into the shed and taken (AKA stole) a racquet and a can of balls. The racquet wasn’t even mine! Sorry Peter, I’ll try to make it up to you.

Coming home at TPC Myrtle Beach World Am Day 3

In any event, it wasn’t a good start to the day on that front, and I’m not even going to comment on the personal side of things. My lessons went ok, but it surely wasn’t a “goose-bump” day (that’s a day when my clients are doing things on court that give me goose-bumps).

Hideaway No.10 I believe

I went home, Steph made me some lunch, I got dressed and went to my place of business and my home golf course, The Hideaway Country Club, which also happens to be just about the prettiest course under 5500 yards from the tips that you are probably ever going to see…at least in our neck of the woods.  

Sean Balliet, Hideaway Head Pro

My first stop was the proshop, where I bantered with our Head Golf Pro, Sean Balliet. Essentially, I checked in and we had some fun repartee about yellow golf balls, which “no good golfer would use,” and some trivia about some of the greats of the game: Snead, Hogan, Nelson, etc.

The lucky yellow ball

During that chat I found out that so little does Sean value yellow golf balls, that he gave me more than a dozen Srixon Z-Star (Try me) balls of the forbidden hue. I gratefully accepted them and headed out to the putting green to try out my new “non-good-golfer” yellow balls.

As I waited for my buddy Chris to show for our 3:30 tee time, I hit some irons into the net, chipped, putt, and was not impressed with my skill level. I was even less impressed with my play when Chris arrived and we teed off. Three consecutive bogeys into the round, I wasn’t thrilled, but hey, I was playing golf, and the weather, though threatening, was holding. How unhappy could I be?   

Hideaway Hole No.6

The sprinkles started around the 6^th hole, and no doubt the cloudage was a bit ominous, but we’ve played in much worse. 

Hideaway Hole No.9

We got to the 9^th tee, and the horn went off. “Yeah whatever,” Chris said, or something to that effect, and flared one right, into the right greenside bunker. Unusual for the typically accurate ball striker, but who could blame him under the circumstances.

I wasn’t at all phased, for as my buddy Joel might tell you, I play better in the rain. Using the new strategy Steph and I came up with a couple days prior, 

Another view of No.9

I pulled a club that would get me barely on or leave me just short of the green. Given the wind, the pin in the front, about 175 yards out, that would be the 5-iron. I stepped up and hit that yellow Srixon just as planned, and the ball dropped just short of the green, rolled up toward the flagstick, and disappeared.

Chris & T. A. celebrate Hole in One

“Did that ball just disappear into the hole?” I asked incredulously? Chris wasn’t too sure, and given my eyesight, I couldn’t be 100% sure, but it sure looked like it disappeared into the hole to me. We drove up, and sure enough it was in the hole.

Up until that moment, it had been an “expletive” day, I hadn’t played a good nine holes, and yet, I had hit my first hole in one after 27 years of hitting golf balls! That "blankety blank" day, was now one of the more memorable days of my golfing life, and all on our dear friend Sandi’s birthday!

Steph & T. A. at The Hideaway

Oh, almost forgot, when Steph and I had walked the course two days prior, I hit my 4-hybrid to with six inches on the same hole! I guess that hole was just meant to be my hole-in-one hole. In any event, Chris and I went back to the proshop, chat with the other Hideaway golf professional, Dave Bartoe, about getting the accomplishment noted and had a beer to celebrate. But the celebration was just beginning (click here for more celebration details).

Steph on the job

Despite the poor start to the day, despite the heavy black clouds and being rained out, the day had taken on a much rosier hue, and all because of a fortunate bounce and roll of an undervalued, yellow golf ball…Go figure! Until next, no foot wedges allowed...T. A.