The Kokopelli Golf Stance

I kept score for Steve Elkington, Michael Letzig, and Roland Thatcher.  They all had kind of up-and-down days, as golfers do.

Elk shot 68 with an eagle, two birdies and two bogies.  He hit the green in 2 on the 562-yd 4th hole and made a longish putt.  That got him to -3, but he bogeyed the 7th hole.  Did I mention that I eagled that one the first time I played it?

Roland shot even par 35-35-70, but in a most uneven way:  6 pars, 6 birdies, 6 bogeys.  At the end he said he couldn't remember the last time he had 6 bogeys in a round.  (I can't either.)

Michael shot 71 with one birdie and two bogeys.  And one eagle and one double bogey.  I guess that would be even more uneven than Roland.  On the 572-yd 11th, he hit his second shot to the fringe, about 15 feet, and made the putt.  He was -3 at the turn, having also made a tap-in birdie on the 230-yard 13th.  Then shot 39 on the last 9.

We started on 10, and at the turn we were collectively 4 under par.  On #1, Michael's approach shot hit a drain cover just to the right of the green, pin high, and bounced 40 yards into the desert, unplayable in a bush.  That led to the double bogey.

On #2, Roland sliced his drive into the desert.  He then hit a provisional, and hooked it into the desert.  Then another provisional, also hooked into the desert.  This is very tricky on the scoring system.  It can handle one provisional shot per each regular shot, but not more than one.  Fortunately, he found the first ball and was able to play it.  It was under a bush, so he took a practice swing through a similar bush, and because it was so brittle from the dry summer, he decided he could play the shot, and chipped it out into the fairway.  Then he almost holed the third shot, hit it right over the pin, and backed it up to about a foot.  "That would have been the dirtiest birdie ever", said he.  When he tapped it in for par, I gave him a blog card and told him it was a helluva par and he could read about it on the web.  Michael said "He got the exact opposite break that I got on the last hole." 

This morning's AZ Republic had a picture of Mike Weir signing autographs at the Pro-Am yesterday ... right-handed.  I saw him putting after the round, so I asked him about it.  No way.  They must have reversed the image. 

I was on TV.  Toward the beginning of the Golf Channel coverage, when we were teeing off on 16.  They showed Michael's tee shot, and then panned to a wide view of the hole from behind the green.  I'm the little red dot on the right side of the tee (left side on the screen), partially obscured by the caddies, which look like little white dots.  Not to be confused with the spectators, which are the little white dots behind the ropes.  You can't see the ropes, though.

I'm off tomorrow, walking again on Saturday.  I'll let you know how the view is from the Paddy O'.

Mr. Science