The Local Paper

God may punish me for sharing this, but if he/she does, it will just be one more thing for which I am punished.

Today, I saw one of the most remarkable things my eyes have ever beheld (below). The young person (name withheld for obvious reasons) is a teenager who has posted reasonable scores in prior events, so there is some level of previously established competence.

Your eye is easily drawn to the first part of the round, holes 2 through 5. Each of these holes that have some combination of out of bounds and water hazards on them. Despite those hazards, it’s difficult to imagine what happened during this 90 minutes stretch. By my estimation, the contestant probably lost two dozen golf balls on these four holes; conceivably one full dozen on the fifth hole alone.

It’s easy to focus only on that first part. What I’m amazed and impressed by is that this kid kept going. There was a decent stretch of holes in the middle of the back nine.

A lesser man might have just walked in (after all, the fifth green isn’t far from the clubhouse. In fact, lesser men have walked in when facing such adversity. Whether it’s Tiger and after his +6 on the first nine of the 2011 Players’ Championship, or John Daly on any number of occasions (he’s gone so far as to play all 18 holes then either fail to properly sign his card and get DQ’d or to get to the 18th hole and fail to hole out so that he doesn’t have to post his number), or any other PGA Tour pro you see in the newspaper with an 84-WD next to their name. But not our kid. He kept going. And going, and going and going. Good for him.

I’d love to know the story behind what went on, but fear that I never will. In the meantime, I salute our junior golfer and wish him the best next time. While I’m sure he’s disappointed and likely more than a little embarrassed, he should be proud of his willingness to see it through and post his number.