The Longest Day

A few quick notes on the denouement of my caddying career, notable mostly for the lingering lower back pain.  That no doubt will pass, but lest there was any lingering doubt, caddying is truly a young man's game...

 We both pulled into the parking lot at about 8:30, and it was 6:00 when Kent signed his last scorecard.

Kudos to Metropolis for the Adirondack chairs on the range.

What came in between has long since blurred together into one long, sweaty memory.  I have a vivid recall of Kent on the range, as I was able to make myself reasonably comfortable.  Kent looked very good, I mean to the extent that I was actually looking...

The first nine was extremely difficult.  Kent missed a five-footer for Par on No. 10 (our first hole), and I'm still kicking myself for not being more assertive and telling him that I saw more break in the putt.  

The low pint no doubt came on the first tee (our tenth hole) when he pushed his drive OB.  The first is the far easier of the two five-pars, and a hole he needed to birdie.  But he made four on his second ball, and showed really good mental toughness in stating in his game.  Two late birdies allowed him to post a three-over 73, very respectable given the conditions.  Of course Greg Bisconti, who plays out of St. Andrews, threw up a 63 in his morning round, which had us shaking our heads.

It felt to us like they were being needlessly brutal with the pin placements, as though they felt the course would be defenseless without tucking them just over or just under ledges.  For instance, on the Par-3 15th, both Kent and Playing partner Tim Hegarty ended up on a small plateau at the back of the green.  Tim was away and hit what looked to be a reasonable putt, only to see it run off the front of the green.  Having seen that, Kent still couldn't stop his ball within 15 feet of the cup, though the lad did make that one.

Similarly, the Par-4 sixth hole has a huge ridge running across the middle of the green.  As we walked off the seventh tee on Monday we watched the group behind play in, and the guys were landing on the back tier and the balls were spinning completely off the green.  I must say, it did get old after a while...

We took a cart for the afternoon round, as did every player in the field.  It was just the Bataan death march out there, and Kent did very well just to hold it together.  He even found a birdie on his lat hole, posting a 6-over 216 leaving him T11.  We're hoping there's a check associated with that finish, but not sure as of now.

We could barely drag our butts back to the parking lot, so no stomach to compare notes.  My take is that Kent showed great fortitude and his putter was a big help, which hasn't always been the case in our evening matches.  However, he simply missed far too many fairways to stay near the top of the leaderboard.  The rough was quite gnarly, and it was difficult to create enough birdie opportunities to maintain our first round position.

But sometimes mere survival is an accomplishment, and I've come away with a sense of satisfaction to have helped my friend post a good finish. I only hope Kent feels the same.