Even Par — The Best Nine I've Ever Played

I shot even par. First time in my life. It was the front nine at North Park, nine holes and not eighteen, and yes I know the difference. The number isn’t the point. The point is what I did when the score got real and the pressure showed up.

I came out after a long, hard day at work. I wasn’t chasing anything. I just needed to be outside, and the swing felt right on the very first tee and never left. Thirty-six. One birdie on the 1st, one birdie on the 9th, one double in the middle, and a decision on the 6th that I’ll be thinking about for a while.

The Swing Was There Early

The 1st at North Park is a reachable par 5, and I opened with a birdie. That set the tone, but more than the score, I noticed how calm I felt over the ball. No mechanical checklist running in my head. I’ve spent the last year and a half rebuilding this swing with Erik Barzeski under the Gears cameras at Golf Evolution, and the whole point of that work is to get to where I’m not thinking about it anymore. Today I wasn’t. I was just playing golf.

The One Mistake

It came on the 4th, the downhill par 3. I had 8-iron and I just hit it poorly, pushed it out right, caught the hill, and the ball was gone. Double bogey. Now I’m one over through four with the round I wanted showing a crack in it.

The old version of me turns that one double into three or four more bogeys on the way in, pressing to win it back. This time I did nothing about it. I hit my next tee shot, made a par on the 5th, and the round was still right in front of me. One bad swing stayed one bad swing.

The Decision on Six

The 6th is the crux of this nine, and it’s where the round was actually won. Tight driving corridor, fescue down both sides, out of bounds left. With a good number going, the sensible play is to club down and just put it in the short grass. My head told me exactly that. You’ve got something here, don’t be stupid, protect it.

I didn’t listen. The only way to get comfortable with pressure is to face it head on, not to avoid it, and standing on that tee I decided to treat the moment as practice for exactly that. This was an opportunity to execute under real pressure, so I leaned into it. I pulled driver and I flushed it, one of the best drives I’ve ever hit, right down the middle.

That swing changed the round from something happening to me into something I was doing on purpose. Once I got through six, I had the confidence, and I knew I wasn’t going to make a mistake coming in. I drove it well on the 7th and stayed clean on the 8th. The work wasn’t in the swings anymore. It was in the decision I’d already made.

The 6th told me to play safe. I hit driver instead, and that was the whole round.

The Chip on Nine

I came to the 9th one over, so a birdie on the par 5 would get me to even. I wanted a good drive and I pushed it right, and for a second I thought I’d lost the second ball of the day. I found it sitting up in the fescue, about 170 to the middle of the fairway with a clean look at laying up to an easy hundred.

Then I made the worst swing of the day. I took 7-iron to lay up, caught it thin, and moved it maybe fifty yards, just past the 150 marker. So now I’m 150 out for my third, with even par sitting right there on the table.

I went 9-iron and hit it perfectly. It started left of the flag and cut back toward it, and in the air I thought it might finish a foot away. The guy I was playing with said it landed right by the pin and released, trickling off the back into the fringe. That left me a downhill 30-footer coming back, technically a chip since I was on the fringe. The 9th green slopes hard back to front and the pins there will punish a careless pace, so this was no gimme.

I gave myself a target and trusted my read. Shout out to Mark Bentley, the AimPoint coach who taught me green reading over in Dubai. On that green the pace is the whole putt, so I picked my line, picked my speed, and rolled it. It went in. Birdie. Even par, something I’d never done before.

Thirty feet, downhill, back-to-front, to get to even. AimPoint read, perfect pace, in the hole.

The Card

Six greens in regulation and thirteen putts. Take away the lost ball on the 4th and I played the other eight in one under without anything that felt lucky. That’s what stays with me more than the 36. This wasn’t a hot putter covering for loose ball-striking. I hit it well and I scored well at the same time, with the number staring at me the whole way in.

What Changed

The even par is a first, but the real change is upstairs. A year ago I lay up on the 6th to protect a good front nine. Today I hit driver on purpose, because I’ve decided that the moments worth practicing are the ones with something on the line.

It helps that the foundation is finally there to trust. Erik’s work on my swing means I’m not standing over the ball managing mechanics, and you can see the reps that go into that on my practice page. Mark Bentley’s AimPoint means I’m not guessing on the greens. When the swing and the read are handled, all that’s left on a hole like the 6th is the decision, and that’s the part I’ve been working to own.

I’ve played this same nine plenty of times when it didn’t go my way. Not long ago I ground out a cold 43 here with my head barely in it. That round was practice for staying present when the score is gone. This one was practice for staying present when the score is right there. They’re the same skill pointed in opposite directions, and today it paid off.

The 5 by 50 project gets measured over full eighteens and a handicap that still has real work in it, and the index has finally started moving the right way again, down to 12.2 over the last two weeks. Rounds like this are why. For a long time I wondered whether I could play to the level I believe I’m capable of with the pressure on. Now I have nine holes of evidence. I’m a good golfer, and I’m done hedging on that.

I’ve got eighteen set up for tomorrow. Maybe it goes great, maybe it doesn’t, and either way it won’t take anything from today. Ups and downs, that’s the game. I was just really enjoying being out there for this one.

Nine holes, baby. I did it.

---

North Park Golf Course. June 19, 2026 — Front nine — Middle Right tees — 34.9 / 124 — 36 (even), 13 putts. More on the performance page.