I had little to no expectations for my round. at the Dunes Course at Monterey Peninsula.  My Titleist clubs were shipped to Connecticut for next weeks tournament  at Shelter Harbor with the University of Connecticut.  I rummaged through the inventory in the Pebble Beach garage and picked my set of Top Flite Tour irons, which are over 20 years old with stainless steel shafts.  This set of irons had recently been returned from Dallas, Texas where they resided when I had the opportunity to play Dallas National.  Usually I’m packing four wedges in the bag, but today I would only have a  pitching wedge and a gap wedge and no sand wedge.  I have dupes of my regular driver but took a Callaway Warbird 3 wood out of the bowels of the garage.  I also unearthed a 21 degree hybrid from the Nakashima mines and an ancient Callaway 7 wood out of one of the ancient golf bags.    My regular putter was available as I shipped a Spider putter with the clubs.  After finding a wrinkled up Titleist glove and a bunch of tees, the bag was ready.

I then made the unorthodox decision to play with my reading glasses instead of my regular lenses.    Last Saturday, I had left the house with my reading glasses since I drive with prescription sunglasses so when I got to the range, I realized the mistake and decided to hit practice shots with my reading glasses.  The results were amazingly positive  and I was dumbfounded as to why this happened.  Given my low expectations for today’s round, I decided to test the experiment and play with my reading glasses–lots of excuses were being developed–reading glasses, ancient clubs, stainless steel shafts, woods I hadn’t hit in years etc.

What occurred was completely unexpected.  I didn’t miss a shot all day with anything in my hand.  I had been having trouble with ball flight with my regular 3 wood and today I’m hitting this ancient Warbird with good ball flight and yardage.  The day was on the cool side and the wind was blowing 15-20 mph all day, which presented interesting club selection decisions.  On the par 3, 4th hole of 185 yards, I laced, to my surprise, the Nakashima hybird past the pin right on line–usually I would struggle with this distance.  The Topflight tours seemed to feel like I was playing ten or fifteen years ago when I used them in the 1990 Phoenix Open Pro-Am.  On the signature par 3, 14th hole, there is usually some trepidation at clearing the ocean and the rocks and the bunker etc. etc.–you usually have a gallery watching from the Point Joe turnout on this wonderful hole with the prevailing wind continuously blowing from the ocean hard from right to left.  I seemed to almost be in a trance-similar to the minister playing in the thunderstorm in Caddyshack-striking the Nakashima hybrid through the wind to about 10 feet for a birdie.  (unlike the minister I wasn’t struck by lightning).  The day ended on the par 5 remodeled 18th hole as I dunked my 180 yard approach shot in the green-side bunker.  Without a sand wedge, I opened the face of the gap wedge and knocked to 10 feet and holed the putt for a very satisfying par and an 80 for the day.  I never hit a gap wedge out of a bunker in my entire golfing life.

It certainly was a very weird day playing golf with reading glasses as any of the players in front of me were viewed as doubles.  Perhaps I had better eye/hand coordination at the ball as the shots were straight as a string all day.  It was a satisfying but very weird feeling.  Now the question is…what do I do next?

18th hole