I drifted off to sleep Saturday night thinking about Father’s Day and wondering what would constitute the perfect day? How about a great beach day with my family, a perfect round of golf, and a thrilling storybook ending to the U.S. Open?
I was going to spend the afternoon at the beach with my wife and kids and the weather was going to be perfect – part one, check. I also had a tee time at the Salt Pond in Bethany Beach at 7:00 a.m.
The Salt Pond is a lovely little par-61 executive course where I annually go to sharpen my iron game when visiting the beach. If your swing is on, you can score because the greens are always soft and in excellent condition. I’ve gone as low as 3-under here, but was thinking about “the perfect round”. How about bogey free? Ever played a bogey free round? On a couple of occasions, I’ve gotten close, and when the round got late into the back-nine, the pressure buildup was significant, and I always cracked. So I figured, why not on the perfect day?
Third, I looked forward to watching Phil Mickelson enjoying his birthday, Father’s Day, first U.S. Open title, yada, yada yada. Well, we know how that ended, but Justin Rose seemed like a very worthy champion, and truly a class act with his gracious post-round comments about Phil. No complaints.
There’s just a driving net with a couple of stations at the Salt Pond, but I’m becoming very adept at playing golf sans hitting warm-up balls since I’ve been working on this new warm-up routine, and elected to tee off after stretching and taking a couple of passes with a swing doughnut. I wonder if any tour pros have played bogey free golf in an official round without warming up? But I digress. I opened with a lovely 7-iron right over the flag and just missed the birdie putt. A couple of solid pitching wedges on #2 and #3 yielded a birdie and a par, but the dream ended on #4 with a pulled 5-iron and a missed 10-footer for par. At least I wasn’t hallucinating for too long. The day ended with a few more birdies, a few bogeys, and two doubles. I finished three-over and sort of reminiscent of the round Lefty would play later in the day. But I was out playing the game I love and really had no expectations other than to have fun.
I loved Father’s Day this year; it was truly perfect for me. How was yours?
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