The first hole...

Starter gave the instructions, I don’t remember a thing he said other than we were the third group of the day. I had the honors, pulled out my driver (it was Pebble Beach for goodness sake) and proceeded to pull my drive to the right into the trees about 200 yards to the right. Starter offered me a provisional ball, I turned to Tommy and he said “we can find it, you will be fine, got through the trees”, so I declined the starter.

Wouldn’t you know it, Tommy was right. Rule #1 – Always Trust Your Caddy. Ball had gone through the shrubs and trees but I was at the base of a tree – so I had to take a little punch shot that placed me in the middle of the fairway. I had a nice 115 yard shot to the green. Tommy handed me my wedge, told me to swing easy and land the ball somewhere near the green. Nice backswing, nice follow through and the ball sailed into the air, ball landed with a thud on the green, 20 feet from the pin. I was ecstatic, I was going to use my divot tool on the #1 green!

My approach shot made a nice big divot on the green, the ball bounced just inches from where it hit. I marked it as Tommy walked up to me, took my ball and cleaned it (that was cool), handed me my putter and pointed 2 feet to the right of the cup and said “Teddy, hit it here”. What? Is he crazy? I’d never had picked that line to putt. Maybe I should aim dead straight at the hole. Then I remember Rule #1 and I putted just as Tommy said. It started slow, picked up speed as it rolled down the hill turned left towards the hole, it was tracking well, starting to slow, just one more roll, but it stopped, on the lip of the cup. I couldn’t believe it! I tapped in for a Bogey at #1 at Pebble Beach. Nothing shabby about that!