Cleveland - Beginning of the home stretch

As we roll our way west to east, the weather is slowly deteriorating. Ever since our stop in Chicago, the sky has been overcast with intermittent spitting rain, and humidity has probably doubled. The courses are getting progressively more crowded and conditions aren’t quite as pristine. Why do we live in New England again?

Anyway, we arrived at Fowler’s Mill Golf Club around 1:30pm and all signs pointed to a let down. The forecast was for rain, our stamina was waning after thousands of miles in the car, and Matt caught a bad case of my contagious lower back pain. Our play had gotten progressively better over the first four days, and any golfer knows that constant improvement invariably leads to big scores sooner or later. And, finally, there was no way to top being treated like royalty with our own caddie at Cantigny the day before.

Highlights/lowlights from Luc’s round:
#1 After a tee ball struck left into left trees, I unintentionally thinned a 9-iron through a gap and onto the green two feet from the hole. Birdie.

#4 Fowler’s Mill’s signature hole, this 450 yard par four takes a direct 90 degree turn right around a large pond, with wind blowing hard right to left. I hit sliced my first tee ball into the lake, shanked my fourth shot into the lake, and made an 8.

#6 I hit a 3-wood through the fairway into the trees, punched out to a severe downslope the fairway, shanked my third shot (and my 6-iron on the next par three), and made a double-bogey 6.

#11 Sliced my drive out-of-bounds on this short par four and then birdied my second ball for a bogey five.

Then I caught fire and made two more birdies and an eagle on the back nine for a 3-under 33. Overall, I was 6-over on two holes, shanked three shots, and was 5-under on the four par fives.

Highlights/lowlights from Matt’s round:

#4 Matt also blew up on Fowler’s Mill’s signature hole, hitting 2 balls into the lake and making an 8. He called this his “Noah’s Ark Hole” because he hit two woods, two wedges, two putts, and two balls to a watery grave.

#9 This is a great golf hole with two different fairways separated by a 15 foot creek running from tee to green straight up the middle of the hole. Players either pick a fairway to aim at or shoot directly for the creek, figuring that it’s highly unlikely to hit it straight enough to find the water. Matt skillfully went with the second option, hitting a great drive that started out over the creek and faded just slightly onto the right edge of the left fairway. From there he hit a 9-iron just off the green 15 feet from the hole and made an easy par to win the hole.

Matt was three holes up on the 11th hole and was sitting pretty to win the match (and dinner), but thankfully for me his back tightened up and his golf shots developed a frustrating magnetism to random cross-fairway creeks. Matt made a devastating 13 on the hole #12 and then a bunch of double and triple bogies on our way back to the clubhouse. This epic collapse coincided with my game catching fire, and I ended up exacting revenge for my loss at Cantigny with a 2 and 1 win (up two holes with one to play).

Matt actually struck the ball quite well off the tee throughout the back nine, and those shots were best when made after a break to lie down and stretch out his lower back while waiting on the tee box. But he forgot to pack his precision short game from the day before at Cantigny (not sure if that’s better or worse than me forgetting my American Express at Old Works in Montana), and I’m worried he’ll find it again for today’s round at Shawnee Golf Course in the Poconos.