I shot a 99

In the middle of the round I was hitting my driver 186. Then by the end I got a 191 twice. And then on 18, I hit a shot 201 yards. All of these were personal bests. 

In October, my longest drive was 166. 

In November, my longest drive was 180.

Today, I hit 201. 

According to this, I'll get my PGA Tour Card by August.

Let's break it down. Also, this was a no mulligan round. The one mulligan on the screen was when the simulator didn't read the ball properly (I was chipping and it thought I was putting.)

A little history for context.

October 26, 2025

1 par
5 bogeys

4 doubles

8 triples or worse

15 mulligans

total score 119

November 12, 2025

1 par

5 bogeys

5 doubles

7 triples or worse

8 mulligans

total score 110

November 26, 2025

3 pars

5 bogeys

7 doubles

3 triples or worse

3 mulligans

total score 99

February 2, 2026

4 pars

6 bogeys

4 doubles

4 triples or worse

0 mulligans

total score 99

Some notes. 

Last time, my pars came on a par 3 (two of them) and a par 4 (one.)

Today, my pars came on a par 3 (one) par 4 (one) and par 5 (two). 

Adding that bit of distance from 175ish to 190ish brought par 5 from my worst hole to just like any other hole. That alone, is a huge confidence boost. The only bad par 5 I had, was my first of the day. My third shot hit a tree and bounced backwards, a net negative. Other than that, I was solid on par 5s. 

This was the first time my par+bogey count was better than my double+triples count. 

There were a number of holes where the putting was a problem. Look, it's part of the game. But it can be frustrating when you finally get on the green in 3 shots, have a par putt in front of you, and then you three putt for a double or four putt for a triple. 

I mentioned the tree incident on hole 3. There was also the water incident on hole 16. First shot in the water, penalty drop. Third shot, also in the water, penalty drop. Fifth shot is 29 yards away. I get up and down from 29. So two penalty strokes but managed to salvage a triple instead of a quadruple or worse. 

The goal was always to break 100. 

With four holes to go, I was on 79. Those four holes have a par of 16. So to break 100, I'm only allowed to go +4 over the final four holes. 

I go par, triple bogey, par, bogey. 

Look at holes 9 through 18, but remove 11 and 16. That's 8 holes of the last 10, where I finished a combined +6. Okay fine, add back in hole 11. That's +9 over 9 holes, just removing the water incident. That's a 45. In other words, on pace for a 90. 

I guess that's not super different from just looking at the back nine and seeing that I turned in a 48. 

Making putts is important. I got a par on 9 and 17 by making 12-foot putts. 

The funny thing about breaking 100 today...I still left so much scoring out there. The tree, the water, the bad putting. 

If you gave me 20 attempts at each hole, I bet I could par every hole at least once. So the challenge of golf isn't that I can't do it once. It's putting together the best version of each hole together in the same round. 

The above paragraph might be very obvious. But that is drastically different than basically every sport out there. I cannot dunk. I cannot survive one play on a NFL field. I cannot hit a MLB pitch if you gave me 20,000 attempts.

But to sit here and say, I'm good enough to make par on any hole, given a large handful of chances, that's actually crazy. 

I'm not sure if I should say the next goal is to hit 95, or if I should just say, I hope next time to improve on today. Let's just go with that.