March Starter Sentence

Courtesy of Pat Clark

The crowd applauded politely when the ball landed six feet past the pin, skipped forward then spun back and stopped eight inches from the hole.  I was on the tenth hole at Augusta, four shots back of leader, Jason Day.

               If I make this birdie, I’ll jump back on the leaderboard.

               “Great shot,” said Jason, although I knew he would have liked it better if I had hit into one of the deep greenside bunkers.

               We walked to the green together as Jason made idle conversation about the colors of the azaleas and the great April weather.  On the green however, Jason’s chatter stopped and he was focused like a laser on his putt, which was a good twelve feet.  Jason’s putt stopped less than an inch from dropping in the cup.  He then calmly walked up and tapped it in for par, which opened the door for me to move up if I could make my short put for birdie.

               I looked at the shot from every possible angle and discerned that in only eight inches, the ball would break right, toward the pond, by at least two inches.  As I walked up to the ball I cleared every thought from my head except, Make This Putt.

               Muscle memory licked in and I kept my head still as I slowly tapped the ball then listened for the clapunk as the ball fell in the hole.

               The crowd applauded a little more enthusiastically.

               The next seven holes were give and take between Jason and me. I won a few more than him and we approached the eighteenth green in a tie.  Jason was much less talkative at this point.  The crowd was now very large and supportive of me as the underdog.

               My approach shot to the green landed about eight feet from the hole.  Jason was about ten feet out.  He putted first.  Once again, his putt was almost perfect but stopped just inches from the hole.  He tapped it in and smiled at me. 

I could read his mind; the pressure is on you now.

I looked at the putt from behind the hole, from behind the ball and, from behind the hole again.  Three inch break to the right. 

I stepped up to the ball and stood over it.  Make this putt and you’re the Masters Champion!  I looked back at my caddie, who happened to be my son.  This may be a moment we’ll remember forever, I thought.  He smiled and winked, “You can make this dad.”

I took two deep breaths and closed my eyes to visualize the shot.

“Sir, excuse me sir.”

“Huh?”  I opened my eyes.

“Sir, would you prefer chicken or pasta for your in-flight meal?”