Pines 18

18
Par 5, 501 yards

After a back nine with three par-3's, the finishing hole has some distance. The tee shot is blind but the landing area is generous. Bunkers surround a stubborn humpbacked green.

I try my 4-wood--a vintage Bob Charles wooden club--off the tee and place it well, though short of the bend, leaving me a blind second shot. My 3-wood wraps around the trees and finds the left rough, from which I leave an 8-iron just short. I loft my sand wedge onto the ridge of the humpback on the green, some 7 feet from the hole, and wheel my pullcart towards the path leading back to the clubhouse. I turn around and am horrified to see that my ball did not, after all, stay on the ridge; it's rolling down to the front fringe. I'm lucky to two-putt from there for a bogey 6. In in 45.