A Once in a Lifetime Golfing Day

As I mentioned in a column that I wrote last year, I started playing golf at a very early age. When I was ten years old, I made three greens in our front pasture, complete with bamboo pole flags, coffee cans for cups, and sawdust for the sand traps. I bought a 7-iron at the Sportsman’s Shop in Crawfordsville for $4.00 and received a putter and 3-wood for Christmas that year. With an uncle’s old golf bag, and a few of Dad’s old clubs, I was in business! Dad took me to the Crawfordsville municipal course when I was 13 years old…I loved it!!

During high school, I played very little golf, as I concentrated on Darlington’s three sports…baseball, basketball, and track, in addition to working on the farm and working for others to earn a little spending money. After graduating from Purdue and beginning my teaching career, I started playing golf in the summers again. A group of Darlington men golfed every Sunday morning at Fairway golf course, which was a few miles north of Lebanon, and I joined that group. The teams (consisting of four players each) were selected by “choose-ups,” with the five or six best players designated as “captains,” who drew numbers to see who picked first. The teams played for ten cents a hole (a “skin”) and $1.50 for each round of nine holes, with the winners usually collecting $2.00 or $3.00 in “prize money.” Slightly less than the $millions the pros make today!

The Fairway course was relatively easy compared to other courses…flat, few trees, and only two minor water hazards. I practiced quite often at home in those days, and I got to the point where I could shoot par (35) or slightly above, which was good enough to be a team captain. However, on one particular day, God must have been looking down on me…and here’s what happened…

On the first hole, which was a par 4, I drove the ball down to the edge of the green…near the apron. Instead of trying to chip the ball towards the hole, I got out my Jack Nicklaus “white fang” putter…and lo and behold…putted it into the hole…an “eagle” and two under par already! The next hole was a short par 3, of which I never had any luck previously…most of the time scoring a bogey (one over par). This time, however, I hit my ball on the green about two feet from the hole…and then proceeded to make that putt…putting me at three under par after only two holes…I was on a roll!

Next up was a long par 5, of which I usually made par because I could drive the ball quite far. Oops! I dubbed the ball, which luckily skipped over the creek, but only went about 35 yards down the fairway. I knew my luck had just ended. But God let me off the hook, and I recovered on my next shots and made a par 5…so I was still three under after three holes. I then proceeded to birdie the fourth hole, making my score four under par, but the next two holes (5 and 6) were always difficult for me on most days. However, beyond my imagination, I birdied BOTH of those holes…making me 6-under par after six holes!

Next up came number 7, a par 4 with a sand trap right in front. Whoa…I scored a 3…another birdie, which made me 7-under par! Then I teed off on number 8, a long par 4 with a dog-leg, in which I normally scored a bogey 5. I hooked my drive near the edge of a cornfield, just barely inbounds…and then somehow managed to score a par 4. Now I was ready to tee off on the last hole…number 9. I couldn’t count the number of times I had teed off on number 9 and hooked the ball across the road and into a cornfield, but on this day my ball went straight down the middle almost 300 yards! I then chipped onto the green about 15 feet below the hole. I lined up my ball, eyed the hole a couple of times, and drilled it in..Holy Cow! I ended up with a score of 27 on the par 35 nine-hole course…a new Fairway golf course record! The three other players on my team couldn’t believe anyone could shoot that low of a score…(8 strokes under par). I had a difficult time even believing it myself. We played another nine holes, and I shot one under par…34…making my score for the 18 holes…61. What a crazy day!!! I knew it would likely never happen again. That year I also won the club championship in the annual tourney.

In 1990, when I was a full-time deputy Sheriff at night in Montgomery County, I also started working full-time during the daytime as the Darlington librarian to help pay for my four kids’ college educations. That was pretty much the end of my golfing adventures, as I barely had time to even get enough sleep. Fairway golf course is no longer. It was plowed up and now exists as farmland. I drove by there recently, remembering all the good times that I spent playing golf with my Dad and two brothers and all of the other fellows from Darlington….the Sunday morning golf bunch.

When Fairway golf course closed, my record 27 for nine holes had never been beaten. Maybe I should contact the guy who farms that ground and see if he can put up a monument proclaiming my great feat…but I am not holding my breath that it will happen.

– John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 32 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.