Monday opened with fog lifting off the coast. Quiet air. Perfect visibility. No excuses.
Three friends stood with me on the first tee: one had just landed from Seoul, another from Florida, and another drove across Southern California. We shook off the nervousness with bad jokes. The starter walked up, checked our names, and delivered one rule in a tone that made it sound older than the course itself:
“If you lose it, you get one minute. After that, drop another and keep moving.”
Seemed fair. At the time.
The North Course played sharply. Nothing flashy—just quiet cruelty. Miss a fairway, and you weren’t in the rough. You were in a botanical trap set by someone who hated your swing. I kept drifting right. One poor decision after another. By the turn, I had stopped counting how many Pro V1s had vanished into oblivion (it was a box). By 18, I wished I’d brought range balls.
I carded 107. That number stared back at me like a parking ticket pinned to my forehead.
And yet, somewhere on the back nine, a strange thing happened. Ball sitting awkwardly on the front edge of the fairway, green sloping like a skate ramp. Too long to chip, too dumb to overthink. I grabbed the putter.
Texas wedge. Ninety feet.
The ball rolled forever. Hushed. Stubborn. Perfect line. It dropped like it had somewhere to be.
I was playing super poorly, and it had gotten in my head, but draining this from the fairway made everyone laugh (including a nearby greenskeeper).
There was no comeback. No miraculous back nine. But that one putt—the way it silenced us, then made us shout—hung heavier than the rest of the round. Golf’s funny like that.
Later that night, I stood in front of my simulator at home. No wind. No rough. Just clean swings, clear numbers, and no lectures from the cart marshal.
I didn’t miss the rough. I missed the group. I missed the chaos. But I’m not giving Torrey the last word.
Not yet.
