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In Phil's Footsteps
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In Phil's Footsteps continued...
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‘That’s a rare feat’
Of course, the George Clooney,
Angelina Jolie and
Will Smith of the course are Nos. 16, 17
and 18,
arguably the best finishing
holes in golf,
probably
because they
contain more risk than reward. So much
can
happen
on this beautifully
wretched stretch of
holes that no lead is ever
safe.
In some ways you
could argue this testy triumvirate is
even better than the
three-hole
collection at Amen Corner
because they
come at the finish.
I
par
the 523-yard
16th
before coming to the most nerve-wracking shot in all of
golf. Or
so I thought. Whenever you tell somebody that you have played
Sawgrass,
all he or she wants to know is: “How did
you do on the 17th
hole?”
I can say
that I did
just fine, thank you. The
green
actually looks a lot bigger
than I
imagined, and my
pushed 9-iron
manages to
catch the right side of the green of
the 137-yard hole. I
make a two-putt par to the back-left hole
location. Nothing
to it. In
fact, two of the other three
players in my
group also hit the green.
But the wind was down;
the
results may have been different with a
breeze.
Still, my
caddie is impressed. “That’s a rare feat,” he
says. “About
120,000 balls a year are pulled from the lake, an average
of
three a person.
Everybody wants to say they hit
the 17th green, and
they keep trying until they
do. No one
wants to take an
X.”
After one last bogey on the 462-yard 18th,
the day
is capped
off with lunch in Pub 17, a
memorabilia-filled private dining
room
adjacent to
the locker room, with Hugh serving up some of
the biggest,
best-tasting potato chips I’ve ever had.
As
I’m leaving the
clubhouse,
former champion Calvin
Peete comes shuffling across the
parking lot, while the
MetLife blimp motors overhead. And I can’t help
but
think:
Man, these guys think
of everything!
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