In only my second year of golf, I had the shot most people wait a lifetime to be lucky enough to nail. To put things into perspective, I shot an overall 101 on the day. But on hole 12 at Muroc Lake GC on Edwards AFB, I swung out of my shoes on an uphill par 3 and immediately lost sight of the ball. For most of the day I had a pretty bad slice going on with my irons, so I immediately assumed it went far right off into the desert, but it felt like great contact. Then my buddy and coworker (and amateur golf coach) said “oh that actually looks pretty good.” Lucky enough for me, a strong right to left crosswind was the perfect counter to my “fade.” However as the ball came down, neither of us had a great look at where it was landing, but we figured we could find it and hopefully just have an easy chip-on. My friend thought it may have been short of the hill-top green, but I felt great contact, so I assumed I flew the green. As we drove up the cart path, and then walked around the rough and through the desert there was no sight of the ball. That’s when my buddy jokingly said, “why don’t you check the hole.” As soon as I saw the ball sitting in the cup I blacked out with pure excitement and proceeded to shotgun a beer and pose for some priceless photo ops.

*yes this was during covid, and yes protocols were in place to include a half as deep cup*