When you absolutely need those last two points.

We all seem to be competitive and we hate to lose. Some days we play well and some days we play like crap. We all have our excuses, especially me. This week I was matched up with Bill Wilson and Wilson calls me his nemesis, which I take as a compliment. I would say Steve King is my nemesis. With King you can’t make a mistake or he’ll keep that smooth swing a rocking and put the throttle down and not let up.

On the first hole Wilson was confident I was going down and had no problem letting me know. Well, it seemed to work as my tee ball landed on a patch of dirt and my approach shot landed short and to the right of the green in a hollow. I sculled my 3rd  shot over the green and down towards the cart path. This led to an embarrassing 9 on the first hole. Wilson bogeyed and now I am 1 down and 4 down. On two we both par and then on three Wilson’s tee ball ends up in the hazard and is plugged. I jut felt it was early in the season and I allowed Wilson to remove the plugged ball with no penalty and to play on. He was perplexed by this and then of course I was second guessing myself but felt it was the right decision. Wilson and I made bogey and off to 4 we went. ( I think deep down I thought I would win the hole no matter what)

On 4 I bogeyed and Wilson doubled so the match was all tied and I am down three strokes. On 5 Wilson lost his tee ball because Norm Comeau and I thought it hit the tree on the edge of the water hazard on the right side of the hazard and we all didn’t see a splash so who knows where it went. We both bogeyed and on 6 I topped my approach shot and found the crap near the cart path and as I was walking in the hazard to retrieve my ball Wilson said I could take a free drop as one good deed deserves another. I still lost the hole so it worked in Wilson’s favor. We both halved 7 and on 8 I 3 putted and Wilson over shot the green on his drive and on his chip bladed it and ended up on the other side of the green. We both bogeyed. As we go to 9 I need a win on this hole to at least make it close for the team.

Here is where the fun begins. Wilson tees off and mis-hits it but it looked like it was a low draw that may run. My tee shot looked like a bomb which was a little high but sounded decent. We drive up the cart path and make a 90 degree turn to check out the balls and I lean over and look at the ball furthest away and I said to Wilson, “It looks like a Titleist”, we stop and Wilson get out and takes a preferred lie which is fine and proceeds to hit his approach shot. I’m 114 yds out and I pull a wedge and hit it a little fat and it drifts left of the pin and short. As we drive to the green I automatically assume Wilson is long and proceed to tell him he is long. He walks up to his ball and Norm Comeau is confused as he is in front of the green and notices his ball is not there and tells us Wilson is in the wrong area. (or words to that effect). Wilson looks at me as if to say, “you knuckle head”, he proceeds to chip up and I then take my set-up and look down and see a Titleist golf ball. Wilson is in shock and within the next five minutes we try and sort things out. Bottom line is, when Wilson hit his approach shot he should have looked to make sure it was his ball he was hitting, therefore he succumbed to a two stroke penalty and loss of hole. That is how I was able to grab two points. Footnote: The last time Wilson hit the wrong ball he was playing against me. What does that tell you?

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