Everybody loves birdies and eagles, that's a given...but sometimes a hard-fought, scrambling par is just as gratifying, if not more so.
Case in point: I just shot the best round of my WGT life so far, a 26 on the front 9 at my usual hangout, St. Andrews. The round featured two eagles, six birdies, and one lonely but significant par.
The round started out nicely with birdies on the first three holes. The one at the 2nd was especially nice because that's a tough little hole with either pin placement. So I move on to the 4th with a right-to-left breeze and back pin, thinking I might bag another bird or at least a par to keep the round alive. Alas, I push my drive and it lands in the small pot bunker on the right...no chance to reach the green, probably a bogey, and a potentially stellar round cut off at the knees.
I mumble a little to myself and pitch out about 40 yds to the fairway. No sense in trying anything crazy here because there's trouble in every direction, including fescue and gorst and the Loch Ness monster for all I know. My next shot is a poorly-struck 7-iron that finishes 30 ft. short of the pin and now I'm facing a crazy uphill-downhill-breaking putt for par. Took a little extra time and with luck, the sucker found the hole for a much-needed par, so now instead of losing a stroke I feel like I've just gained one.
I move on to the par 5 5th, still three under, and eagle it after a nice drive and a 3-iron to 12 ft. After birdies on 6 and 7 to get to 7 under, a poorly-struck 4-iron leaves me 17 ft. above the hole on #8, but the putt finds the hole with its last little tumble and I go to #9 at 8 under. A helping wind lets me drive to the edge of the green exactly 17 yds from the hole, perfect distance for a pitch with the 64° Cleveland. As luck would have it, the ball hops into the hole for another eagle and a 10-under 26.
The funny thing is, when I go over the round in my head, the hole that sticks out is #4. The scrambling par there is what kept the round going, or at least kept the train from careening off the tracks.
I guess the point of all this is to pay tribute to the lowly, mundane, overlooked, but oftentimes indispensable par. I suppose par is like a lawyer...you don't appreciate one until you really need it.