Good start

The first hole at Clayton Park Golf Course (nine holes for $10 on the weekend) is marked 258 yards on the card, plays straight uphill with trees on both sides of the "fairway," i.e. the area between the tree-lines - because the whole course is evenly mowed (or not mowed, as the case may be). Sunday afternoon weather was perfect; bright, fresh, spring conditions. The course was crowded for March.

I teed off last in a group of three, stiff-arming a low draw with the 9° Callaway driver to about 65 yards from the elevated green. It had been a couple of days since the last rain and the ground was still plenty hydrated. Previous experience attempting full swings with my 60° wedge in this situation (especially with soggy turf) have yielded exclusively calamitous results, so a little 2/3 gap wedge it was. And was it ever - I couldn't see the ball land, but the early report was good.

When I got the top of the hill (walking only at Clayton International) my Titleist 1 was sitting pretty with only about three feet of shaggy green between it and the cup. Despite a scream of "Fore!" from someone teeing off in the group behind us at the exact moment I was attempting my birdie putt, the ball found the back of the cup and for the first fleeting moment of the season I grinned, "Par? What par?"