Another wintery Sunday in Alaska is upon us and again, I force myself to sit down and craft to get in the habit.
In this week’s imaginary grudge match, Todd Santangelo challenges Devery Prince to a rematch at Pine Valley in New Jersey. Fuming after his final-hole loss to Prince at St. Andrews, Santangelo pulls some strings to get them a tee time at one of the toughest courses in the world.
Pine Valley is famous for being designed for good golfers, with total disregard for casual swingers who want to sip martinis and have a good time. Santangelo is well aware of this, but hopes Prince is not.
Six holes into the match, Santangelo is 3 up on Prince. The secret is conservative play and deadly hybrid approaches to set up 3-putt bogies. Neither player has made a par, but Prince has four “others” on the scorecard.
As they make the turn and head to the back nine, things aren’t getting any better from a scoring standpoint, as both golfers are on pace for their highest score since they first put pencil to cardboard.
Santangelo’s lead is up to 5, despite Prince making an amazing bogey to win the 11th hole. Prince finally realizes how tough this course is and pulls out his 7-iron he won the Alaskan Masters with years ago. Going to a one-club strategy rights the ship for him and he wins the next three holes.
Prince is on a roll, just two down with four to play, but Santangelo digs deep and bogies 15 and 16 to close out the match 3&2. Mentally and physically exhausted, the friends order two martinis from the cart girl and laugh their way in on the final two holes. Scorecards were quickly thrown in the trash at conclusion of the round after the adding machine indicated Santangelo shot 129 and Prince shot 131.
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