A Round to Remember

Saturday I had by far the best 18 holes of my life. Jeff Hoolsema had won an 18 hole 4-some at Diamond Springs Golf Course about 20 minutes south of Hudsonville. The course was very nice and quite hard in parts. Luke Brodbeck and Jeff's cousin Nathan also played. I started strong with 3 straight quality pars. Straight drive, stick my 150 yard approach, and 2 putt. I bogeyed the 4th before we came to what was the highlight of the round. As we approached the 159 yard par 3 #5 we immediately started complaining about the pin placement. The green was huge with 3 levels. The small front level was protected by a large mound right in front of the green. It then sloped down to the large center level before another elevated small section in the back. The pin was at the front of the green, a little in front the big slope to the center section and right behind the mound that blocked the front of the green. We all thought it would be impossible to keep our tee shot on that top level even if we had a good shot. Then Jeff stepped up and hit a towering iron right at the mound. We all thought, "hey that might be really good if it can softly bounce off the mound." It hit the mound and dissappeared from our sight. We all looked away for a minute and when we looked back, Jeff's ball was sitting right next to the pin! Well I hit next and had the exact same shot as Jeff's, bouncing it off the mound. This time we closely watched but it never came back into view. When we all drove up the the green we saw mine about 5 feet from the pin and Jeff's was a mere 16 inches! We both made our birdie putts.



I continued to play well for the rest of the round and finished with a 39-41 for a superb 80.

On Sunday I had my best tubing of the summer. I went for well over an hour during the day with 3 of us behind the boat. The highlight was when it was me, Jason, and Jeff. I was on the inside and dragged to keep myself in the wake while Jeff and Jason whipped out. They were then whipped back across the wake and both jumped me. I stayed in the wake and 10 seconds later they whipped back across and both jumped me again. Well I didn't want to be the setup man all day so I waited in the wake for a few seconds while they were being whipped until just before the end of the turn (timing is crucial for an outside the wake jump) when I released and allowed myself to be flung outside. By this time Jason and Jeff were starting to come back at me so I got on my knees and jumped them both in a single bound. So in a matter of about 20 seconds we had 6 jump-overs. It was awesome.