The One Shot Par

The golf league that I now belong to plays loose and fast with the rules. Good-Good is the order of the day in putting; you’re allowed one roll-over with balls in the rough or fairway. On aerated greens (common at this time of year) anything within a putter length is automatic.

It’s that last that led to the now-infamous one-swing par.

The seventeenth on our course is a par three island green, like the one at the TPC Sawgrass. , at a distance of about 150 yards. K.P. teed it up, and took his first (and it turned out, only) swing of the hole.

The ball was long and left, carrying over the green and into the water. Mine was short, and I had to hit from the drop zone.

K.P. in the meantime, continued on to the green, where he dropped the ball at the point where it last crossed dry land—on the left edge of the green—and added a penalty shot. Then, since the hole was within his belly putter’s club length, he took an automatic. For a three.

Swing. Penalty. Automatic. Three.

If I cared, I think I would have been appalled. As it was, I just grinned. And from the conversations about it in the post-round debriefing room (also known as the bar), it was evident that the play would be remembered forever.