A Birthday 88 at Reserve Run

Every year around my birthday, my buddy Ray and I go play golf. It started in 2020, when getting outside with a friend was about the only thing you could do, and it just stuck. Six years now. We don’t sit down and plan it. There’s no calendar invite, no back-and-forth about dates. It just happens.

This year I had North Park in mind, and then Ray floated Reserve Run instead, an hour over the line in Poland, Ohio, a course I’d never played. So that’s where we went. New course, no local knowledge, one more step toward my pursuit of 100 courses. Show up and see what it gives you.

What it gave me was one of the stranger 88s I’ve ever carded.

A Cold Start That Nearly Got Away

We pulled in and the place looked tight, fairways pinched and trouble close. I figured it was going to be a long day driving the ball. Out on the course it played more open than it looked from the lot, but I think that first impression sat in the back of my head over the opening stretch anyway.

It was cold and windy, and I’d underdressed in a quarter zip that wasn’t enough. Neither of us was comfortable those first few holes. Through six I was hanging around. Nothing pretty, but nothing that ran away from me.

Then 7, 8, and 9 happened back to back. Triple, triple, double.

On 7, a hook on a dogleg right put the tee shot out of bounds. I should have known better. I took a 4-hybrid off the tee and my “miss” is a hook. In reality I fell out of my pre-shot routine and back into old habits, which will happen from time to time. No big deal. I took the drop and was looking to get on with a 9-iron. The ball was slightly above my feet, I tried to “get it there,” and chunked it back into the water. Dang. Dropped, chipped on, walked away with a triple.

On 8 I had 160 to carry the water and 180 to the flag, so I took 7-iron, a club I can hit reliably 170+ and fairly on line. I aimed slightly right of a right-sided pin and proceeded to hook the tee shot into the water. Walked up to the drop zone, executed my swing, and landed a yard or so short. Chipped on, another triple.

On 9 I pulled driver and played an aggressive line on the dogleg left, just over the bunker on the left side. By now I’m wandering the course without a plan, just hitting shots. I hit it left, again, took yet another drop, got on, and left with a double.

What stuck with me walking off 9 wasn’t the number. It was how few actual mistakes built it. Take the worst swing out of each of those three holes and I’m shooting something completely different. All the damage landed on three holes instead of spreading itself across the round. It wasn’t the swing that killed me. It was the focus.

First look at a course where I didn’t know where the trouble was, and it found me on the front.

Where the Round Turned

I made the turn telling myself the back was a clean sheet, and it mostly played like one. I got back into my routine. The tee shot on 10 wasn’t my best, but I was back in the groove, a good poke up the right side that left the par-5 green in range. I pulled 7-iron and flushed it to the back of the pin, only to watch it kick off the green into the bad stuff.

Luckily I found my pitch mark, and Ray found the ball in the woods, buried in tall grass on a hillside with almost no room to get the club on it. Here’s where the round turned. I stood on the upslope and popped it cleanly onto the green, got down in two, and walked off with par. Best recovery shot I’ve ever hit. Now we’re cooking.

Bogeys on 11 and 12 (12 a reachable green guarded by water that I found out of bounds going for it), and I was only plus-two on the back through three holes. Then 13 dropped, a birdie off a putt in the 20-foot range, and the round flipped. Par on 14, par on 15, bogey on 16, par on 17, bogey on 18. In there I had a couple of balls roll right over the lip that could’ve been another birdie, another par, the kind that burn the edge on a course you’ve never read. A few of those fall and the back is in the low-to-mid 30s.

Thirty-nine coming home. After the birdie on 13, I had a lot of confidence.

The fairway number is ugly and the penalty count was high, both of which track with a first look at a course where I didn’t know where the trouble was. Six greens and 37 putts on an unfamiliar set, with a back nine that could’ve been lower, is something I’ll take on a birthday.

The lesson isn’t a swing key. It’s that score is secondary to the process I’m running on the course. Focus brings the habits that keep me in the round, the habits that minimize the swings that put me in the water. That’s something I’ll be managing for a long while, maybe forever, as we keep rebuilding the swing. The front got away because I lost focus and slid into old patterns. The back held because I got it back. Same swing, better head.

Why We Keep Doing This

Ray and I have played a lot of golf over the years, and the birthday round is the one that stays on the calendar no matter what else is going on. I couldn’t tell you what either of us shot last year. I remember that we played.

We went to lunch after, like we usually do. While I was off washing my hands, Ray asked the servers to do something for my birthday, and they brought out the birthday version of a cake: candles stuck in a burger. I didn’t see it coming. I leaned into it.

Reserve Run was a good one to add to the list. Well kept, very scorable, a back nine I’d play again tomorrow. I’d like to go back knowing the layout, a warmer day with a later tee time and focus held start to finish, and see what the number looks like when I’m not learning where the trouble is on the fly.

The 88 goes in the book at 14.1. But that’s not really what the day was about. It was the standing date, the right person across the cart, and a burger with candles in it.