2008 SHELL'S WONDERFUL WORLD OF GOLF
JEFE VERSUS JIMBO
ARCADIA BLUFFS GOLF CLUB
8th Hole: Par 4, 389 yards
YouTube version:
It bears repeating. You simply cannot count this guy out.
Another wayward drive, another long search for the ball. Another review of the videotape, but it was to no avail this time. However, Jefe did find my pro-V1 from the previous night (although I never did see it again). Technology 1, Penalty Strokes 1.
Just when it looked like this match was going to start getting out of hand, Jefe pulled himself back into the match with some vintage Jefe. The 8th green is one of the wildest greens at Arcadia, a 3-putt waiting to happen. Jefe hit a great shot after his drop, but found himself some 55-feet from the hole, on the wrong side of the huge ridge that bisects the putting surface.
What happened next is the stuff of legend. Jefe swung back that ugly claw grip, whapped the ball so it just trickled over the ridge and let the ball feed the ball towards the hole. Jefe had asked me to tend the flag, and I obliged, but that left me with the tricky job of trying to play cameraman and caddy at the same time. I left the flag in and hung back, thinking to myself that there was very little chance that I'd really need to pull the stick. As the ball trundled over the ridge, about 6 feet out it looked really good. I had to hustle over and grab the flag, and made it there with about a foot to spare. 'It's looking good...it's looking good...ahhhh! It's looking great! What a par! (voice crackling) He's back in the match!' Easily one of the top 10 golf calls of all time. I'd like to see Verne Lundquist try to make it there in time.
Meanwhile, Jimbo was making a mess of the hole. After placing another drive in the fairway, he could've put a ton of pressure on Jefe by finding the green with his second shot. But he put the ball in the one spot where you can't miss on this hole, short and right into the deep bunker guarding the green. Two Hasselhoff's, one lackluster chip and a violent horseshoe lip-out was bad enough, but one of the most blatant mouth-on-ball violations ever recorded on film ('G'putt Jim') added insult to injury. Jimbo's triple-bogey now put him down by one stroke in the match. What happened to all those tap-in birdies from before?
Jefe: Again I flared a drive and now I was really starting to lose it. I was mad at myself for putting my drive down in the junk, and after a long look couldn't find it although I knew it had to be there somewhere. After a penalty shot I just wanted to get my six iron up around the green, and I did that but I left myself a very long putt on the wrong tier. I was just trying to get my ball to creep over the top of the hill on the green, and I did exactly that. Surprisingly the ball was on line and went in for an admittedly shocking par.
Jimbo: All things considered I was pretty happy at being only +2 standing on the tee. I figured a sub 40 front side was right there. I figured wrong. A pretty solid drive left me in the fairway with about 185 up the hill. The ONLY place I couldn't put the approach was low and right in the bunker. Low and left, long and left, long and right would all be okay BUT NOT THE BUNKER. I didn't listen to the voices raging in my head and toed (ed Note: Toey is in da house!) one in the bunker. I had a super fluffy lie and left my third in the bunker and my fourth barely made it out. Now it gets ugly. I leave my fifth some 12 feet short and then endure watching Jefe make a bomb in typical dramatic Jefe fashion for par. I knew I had the line for my sixth shot but when I lined up I could sense that I was not aiming left enough. Instead of stepping away and aiming further left, for some reason I thought it would be better to just hit the putt harder and take some of the break out. Similar to my hairstyle, bad choice. The putt lipped out violently for triple. I had just let Jefe back into the match. I knew the rest of the way would be a dogfight.
After 8 Holes: Jefe +4; Jimbo +5
