The Miracle
A rediscovered photo, a once-in-a-career opportunity, and finding ways to recapture the magic.
A couple weeks ago, my dad texted me this photo:
A couple things of note here. I used to be a loud shorts guy. I’d say “regrettably,” but I was 11, so I’ll give myself a pass[1]. Conversely, I continue to believe the blue AdiZero Ones were the zenith of 2010’s golf fashion, and I’ll die on that hill to this day. And, of course, I’ve always been a Titleist guy.
We can date the photo to June 2013. We’d come down here to St. Simons with my whole extended family every June. My dad’s hat is from the Ryder Cup at Medinah the previous fall. And it’s the last month or two of an era, right before I got my trusted gamer putter, Lilly.
My dad and I figured all this out pretty readily. But something that took a little more digging: what golf course is that?
I’ve been home in St. Simons this week, but I’m back on the road on Sunday — I’ll be spending the next week playing a tournament in Valdosta. That means that the last time I spent seven days in a row at home was mid-May. I’m pretty spent, and I’m planning to stay home a few weeks after next week’s event.
I’ve been sitting on this for a bit, but: next week I’m playing PGA Tour Australasia Q School. I guess they’ve had trouble filling out the field for their 78-man US Final Stage Site, and so they’ve opened it up to pretty much anyone, and even then I’m not sure they’ve filled it out.
So it’s going to be 78 guys for 6 cards somewhere in Australia. I don’t even really know the specifics. My friend the ThumbGod[2] sent me a text a few weeks ago telling me to sign up, and I didn’t ask questions. And, frankly, I still haven’t. My job is just to put the peg in the ground and try to be one of the top six, and that’s all I’m really worried about.
The other bonus: I’ll be playing at Kinderlou Forrest Golf Club in Valdosta. This is also my Korn Ferry Pre-Qualifier site.[3] When you sign up for Q School, you need to give your ranked preferences for every single site of each stage of Q School: 8 Pre-Q sites, 14 First Stage sites, 5 Second Stage sites. So, earlier this week, I sat down and spent a full day looking at Q School sites.
I’ve had a sudden obsession with computer modeling. I’m no expert by any stretch, but I put together a python script that tells me which pitchers to start in my fantasy baseball league (where I’m riding a ten-week win streak).[4] And I decided to keep it going: instead of spending six hours looking at aerials and making guesses, I spent seven hours collecting data, putting together some excel functions, and making guesses.
I generally play better on long golf courses that let me take advantage of my length off the tee. I also don’t much like shootouts where guys are going 20-under for the week, so I feel more comfortable on harder golf courses where par is a better score.[5] So I my formula is weighted 66% by the length of the golf course and 33% by where, in the latest pro event there, the guys at T-20 finished (usually a better indicator than the winner, who could’ve gone on a Ken Duke heater).
And, the overwhelming best course fit for me based[6] on the model: Kinderlou Forrest.
So it’s a big week coming up. A 78-for-6 qualifier for a card anywhere is pretty much unheard of. For context, by some rough (emphasis on rough) math, about 2500 people play Q School each year for 5 PGA Tour Cards and 40 Korn Ferry cards. That’s 1.6% of the field getting Korn Ferry cards and 0.2% getting PGA Tour cards. At this Australasia qualifier, 7.5% of the field will be walking away with cards — an unheard of number. These chances don’t come around often, if ever. And they especially don’t come around on golf courses that set up perfect for me.
I’ll be honest. I’d love to tell you that my head’s purely in a “this is my week, everything’s set up perfect, I’m winning this event”-type space. In reality, coming off a billion missed cuts, it’s taking some effort to keep myself away from the “man, how pathetic would it be if you screwed this one up” thoughts. But it is what it is — that’s the challenge. After all, those thoughts are only as serious as you make them.
I play out of Sea Island Golf Club down here. Sea Island has everything a professional golfer could ever possibly need — except two things. First, the short game area is absolutely perfect. The turf is hands down the best I’ve ever hit a ball off of. This is great for the Tour guys practicing for Tour conditions. Less so for a northern boy trying to practice his low point on gnarly, grainy, silty, mini-tour Bermuda. And second, the golf courses are on the demanding side, and it’s nice to have a place to practice (in theory) shooting 64.
I used to work out at the Anytime Fitness here, the one that closed down on 36-hours’ notice a couple months ago. Looking for a new place to workout is non-trivial on a small island: there’s one other gym, “The Club”, that’s $150 a month. And so I looked into a membership at a golf course down the road, Sea Palms. They have a gym. They have a golf course with a 71.8 rating from the tips. Joining was substantially less than getting a gym membership (!!). And, down the road, there’s a 4.5 acre plot of land called The Miracle.
This is one of those stories that should be told by a real journalist with legitimate research bandwidth instead of one paragraph in a pro-golfer’s substack. But, in 2017, the American Southeast was hit hard by Hurricane Irma. Sea Palms, a resort as well as a club, felt it. They sustained some serious damage, lost a bunch of rooms, and somewhere along the line lost their second golf course, a nine-holer, Sea Palms West. In 2019, King Collins Design (of Sweetens Cove renown) came in to renovate the main 18-hole course. They were asked about rebuilding a couple holes on the West course while they were there. King Collins came back with another proposal: wouldn’t a better use of the land be a world-class, 4.5-acre short game area? Will Carter, managing partner of Sea Palms, responded, “well, that’d be a miracle.” And so it was named.
I said I was warding off some unproductive thoughts. Truth be told, I think my golf is in the best spot it’s been in years. After a couple months strengthening my “just visualize and execute” muscle, my coach and I have found some easy, simple ways to keep my technique in good spots. As it turns out, good technique makes a huge difference in making visualization easier (if you’re aligned correctly to the target, it’s easier to imagine starting the ball at the target — who knew!?). And, after some non-golf travel, the cobwebs are cleared out, I’m unburdened by what has been, and I kind of feel like a kid again.
When I first got to the island, I spent a lot of time in the Sea Island short game area. I would throw down an alignment stick and a bucket of balls, and I’d work on a bunch of technique stuff on perfect turf, trying to control all the minute variables of the golf swing.
It’s probably all that work that got me to this point, but I’ve been going about it differently. I’ll take three balls, a wedge, a glove, and a wire brush — and sometimes a non-alcoholic beer — out to the Miracle. I’ll try to keep my right palm facing the target instead of flipping over. And I’ll just hit shots. I’ve fallen into the trap a lot of thinking, if I’m not doing it right, then it must be something complicated that I’ve yet to wrap my head around. But usually it’s not. Great golf is usually lighthearted, fun, and really, really simple.
My dad and I agree: that photo must’ve been taken at Sea Palms. After joining Sea Palms and playing the golf course, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where. There just isn’t a green complex out there that looks like that.
But, back in 2013, there was another golf course at Sea Palms: Sea Palms West. You’d figure that we’d take that photo on the last hole, the ninth. And what stands on the site of the old ninth hole? Well, that’d be the Miracle.
It’s funny. Professional golf means a greater attention to detail, more knowledge of the game, and a lot more to think about. By now, I’ve forgotten more about golf than that kid has ever known. But I don’t need anything more than what he had, what I’m finding now, playing golf. And it’s nice knowing that I don’t need to find anything new — just to continue rediscovering the game with fresh, joyful eyes, just as I’d done twelve years ago on this very earth.
[1] Scout’s honor, this had nothing to do with Poulter.
[2] Shoutout Chris Kaneb — whaddup Chris.
[3] The pre-qualifier is the first stage of Korn Ferry Q-School. Actually, the second stage is called First Stage, except that it’s technically the first stage and the Pre-Qualifier is a stage before First Stage — you know what, I’m not doing this right now.
[4] Connor, for fuck’s sake, stop dicking around on computers and go hit wedges.
[5] Par is rarely a good score — you won’t get too far in pro golf by shooting par. But par gets you further at some places than others.
[6] Based.
