by Fred Greene, Host, Golf Smarter Podcast
Earlier this Spring, my three closest friends and I met in Las Vegas for a weekend of 4 rounds over three days. Since I’m the host and producer of the GOLF SMARTER Podcast , my assignment was to arrange the golf.
After a direct flight from San Francisco, my large Ogio travel bag, which carried my clubs, clothes, shoes, gifts, toiletries and electronics (chargers, GPS, etc) never arrived. So on Friday, with two rounds scheduled, I had to play with borrowed clothes, rented shoes and rented clubs. Not a great start to the weekend.
Throughout the weekend, every course that we played supplied me with Callaway X22 irons, Callaway Diablo driver & fairway woods, and an Oddysey blade putter, which I hated. Luckily there was no money at stake in our rounds, so I could play relaxed. The only anxiety was waiting for the phone to ring from the airlines to say that they found my clubs. They called each day to say that they were still looking with no luck.
On Saturday, we had an early morning teetime at Red Rock Country Club, The Arroyo course, just outside of Vegas in Summerlin. This being our third round, I was getting used to the Callaways (I play Mizuno MX-25...eh, played). As we approached the 14th hole, I had honors. As I stepped up to the tee box, I surveyed the hole to see a shallow green from front to back and explained to my friends, “You’ll need to hit a high lofted shot so that it comes down softly and sits without rolling off the back.”
“Yeah, yeah,” they exclaimed, “shut-up and hit the ball”. As I addressed the ball, Mike’s back was to the green as while "taking relief" at the base of a tree, Randy and Elliot waited patiently. I took a smooth swing and was immediately impressed with the ball flight and trajectory. The ball bounced once and disappeared. “Did that just go in the hole?” I asked.
“No, it bounced off the back into the rough” said El.
“Are you sure?” I said
“Yeah, it’s an elevated green and you can’t see it buried in the tall grass.”
“Randy, did you see it?”
“I can’t tell”
And Mike then rejoined us to ask what happened.
“I think it bounced once and went in” I stated again
Elliot emphatically said, “nope, off the back. My turn.”
So for the next few minutes, there was a tremendous amount of mystery surrounding the resting place of my ball. Michael and Randy drove ahead of us and were first to the green. They walked directly to the hole, looked down and screamed “it’s in the hole!!!!”
In the combined 90+ years that the four of us have played golf, it was the first hole in one that any of us had ever experienced in person.
The airlines are still looking for my bag.
Right now I'm in the process of getting fitted for a new set of clubs, and I'll most likely play with them on future golf trips.
This summer, I'm going to NY for a wedding and have one round scheduled for that weekend. My thought right now is bring a glove, golf shoes and MY putter, but play with rentals, just to reduce the anxiety and limit the chances of granting the airlines another mulligan.
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