Quote:
Originally Posted by KingJames
Details details...
Ok ok..
A couple friends and I headed inland for a social game at a course two of us had never played before. I actually played terribly for the most part and had probably the highest score off the stick that I've had in months, but I digress.
6th hole is a par 5, 449m (roughly 490ish yards). Slight left-to-right dogleg, but the tee shot is kinda open. Tree-lined fairway, OB down the right side just outside the tree line. Coming into the green, the hole narrows considerably, and the last 100m or so is kinda like a 15-20m wide runway of sorts, with trees and undulating rough to the left, and to the right there is a raised dam, which you can't see from back in the fairway. None of us had any idea the dam was there. I imagine it is full of golf balls given where it is.
I hit a pretty solid drive up the left hand side. My ball is on a pretty tight, hanging lie but sitting up ok. I have 228m (~250 yards) to a back pin location on a small, narrow green. My only shot is to hit a low draw 3w and run it up through the runway short. I recently got fitted for a TS2 and have been pretty comfortably shaping it and flighting it any which way, so despite playing terribly to that point, decided to give it a go.
Struck it pure, little baby draw straight at the flag. Hard to tell how far it carried but it ran up to about 3 feet short of the front edge. It was a hell of a shot from a hanging lie, not least when you consider the invisible dam I'd have been in had I not turned the ball over, or OB further right had I straight up carved it.
I get up to the green, pretty happy with the shot. I've recently started pitching more from spots like this with a 9ir, as opposed to trying to flight a 60 degree. I've realised that it's so hard to be as precise as you need to be with shots like this, and the percentage play is to pitch and get it rolling like a putt instead. With that in mind, I take out my 9ir and play for a landing position about 2-3 feet on the green, maybe 2 feet outside right of the cup and let the ball run out and fall back toward the pin.
Anyway, I clipped the ball perfectly, hit my landing spot and watched the ball track the entire way. It hit dead-centre of the flag at fairly gentle holing speed. The ball never looked like missing.
My buddies who know my lack-of-eagles has been a real monkey on the back for a couple of years now celebrated pretty hard. Well, one did. The other was still moping about losing a ball off the tee and still hadn't yet found his approach shot. Plus he knew our standing bet was any eagle in one of our skins game earned you a carton of beer from each player. Today was an expensive day for him.
So there's the story! I can finally tick that one off my golf goals.