Eighteen Chances at a Par (and I Turned Down Every One of Them)

I have made pars before. I want that on the record. Not many, and never two in a row, but they exist, and I remember each of them the way other people remember weddings.

So when Pete and Chris suggested the Arcadia Par 3 Golf Course for a late-afternoon round, I set what I believed was the most reasonable goal of my golfing life.

One par. Just one.

It’s eighteen holes, and every single one of them is a par 3. That’s eighteen chances. A man with eighteen chances at anything should come home with at least one.

The math

I did the arithmetic on the first tee. The whole course is 1,947 yards, all eighteen holes put together.

“That’s shorter than my commute,” I said.

“Most things are,” said Pete, kindly, and he hit a wedge onto the first green like he was setting down a coffee cup.

The one sad part was The Regret. My 2011 driver had no business on a course like this, so I’d left it at home, leaning in the corner of the garage. I felt bad about it. It’s not used to being left out of things. It’s more used to being the reason things go wrong.

Without it, I had no excuses. Just my irons, my wedges, my putter, and the San Gabriel Mountains standing right behind the course like they’d come to see whether I’d finally do it.

I made a four on the first hole. Then a four on the second. Fours are close to threes. I told myself the threes were warming up.

The sand

The course has a lot of bunkers, and some of them were recently redesigned. I visited several of the new ones out of respect, the way you’d check out a neighbor’s remodel.

Chris treated every one of my bunker shots like a playoff game.

“You got this,” he called from the edge of the green on one of the early holes, crouching with his hands on his knees. “Nice and easy. Splash it.”

I splashed it. The ball came out, rolled across the green, and kept rolling until it found another bunker, as if it wanted a second opinion.

“Okay,” said Chris, without losing a single ounce of enthusiasm. “Now you know how this one plays. Splash it back.”

I made a five. Chris clapped anyway. He clapped for the effort. That’s Chris.

The sun

Somewhere around the ninth, with the sky just starting to go orange, I stopped walking and took out my phone.

“What are you doing?” Pete asked.

“Checking for solar flares.”

I have an app for this. It said there had been “minor solar activity” that afternoon. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew it meant me. Somewhere ninety-three million miles away, the sun had hiccuped, and an hour later, here in Arcadia, I’d put a wedge in the sand.

“The sun’s been doing that for a few billion years,” Pete pointed out.

“Exactly,” I said. “It’s had practice.”

Pete made par on the ninth. Chris made par on the tenth. Neither of them checked the sun at all, which I thought was reckless.

The lights

Here is something wonderful about this place: the course has lights for night golf. Around the fourteenth, the sun went down, the lights came on, and suddenly the greens were glowing like little stages.

I’ll admit it changed me. Under those lights I felt like a professional. I stood over a fifteen-foot putt with all the gravity of a man on television, and I putted it like a man watching television. Four.

On sixteen I hit a seven-iron so pure that I heard a small gasp, and I’m almost sure it was mine. It landed on the green, took one big hop, and kept going over the back like it had somewhere else to be. Four.

Eighteen

By the eighteenth tee I had seventeen holes without a par. Seventeen opportunities, all respectfully declined.

My tee shot came up just short. Then I hit the best chip of my life. It came off the face soft, took two little bounces on the green, and stopped four feet from the hole.

Chris actually cheered. Pete, who is not a cheerer, said, “Good shot, Jim,” which from Pete is a parade.

Four feet. Under the lights, with the mountains turning purple and the last of the sunset hanging around to watch. If I made it, I’d have my par.

I read it from both sides. I took a deep breath. I made a smooth, honest stroke.

The ball rolled up to the hole, caught the edge of the cup, went all the way around it like it was taking a victory lap for somebody else, and stopped on the far side, half an inch from the hole, looking back at me.

Nobody said anything for a while. Chris put his hands on his head and left them there.

I tapped in for a four. Pete and Chris both made three, which was fair. They’d earned theirs.

The card

On the drive home I went over the card carefully, the way you go over a receipt when you’re sure there’s been a mistake.

Seventy-seven strokes on a par 54. But really, if you think about it, that’s mostly fours, and a four on a par 3 is just a par 3 that brought a friend. Take out the five strokes I’ve decided belong to the sun, and I shot seventy-two, which, on most courses, is even par.

Zero pars. Eighteen chances. I’m going back next week, because one of them owes me a three.