[caption id="attachment_1672" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Spring is here."]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1672" title="20120331_8" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20120331_8-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>[/caption]

I made it onto the golf course to play nine holes yesterday, and as has been the case lately, my game was sort of erratic.

Last spring, I was playing a great deal of golf, and I had some of the most amazing rounds of my life. I broke 80 three times, with an overall best round of 78. Even better than that, though, I had one round playing only the front nine where I had eight pars and one bogey for a 37.

That round was really cool, because I had pars on the first eight holes and missed a putt on the ninth that would have given me a tremendous milestone -- par golf.

Generally when I'm playing well, I'll shoot around 40 or 41 on the front nine. I know the holes well enough that I can usually shoot par on about half of them. But right now I'm a long way from that kind of consistency.

When I played yesterday, I bogeyed seven of the nine holes. I parred one of them, but it was on the remaining hole -- No. 6 -- that I had my best moment this year, golf-wise.

The hole is a strange one. It's a relatively short par four (about 335 yards), but you can't see the green from the tee box. You hit your first shot uphill, and it's crucial to stay in the middle of the fairway. It's an easy approach shot to the green from here, but that's where the hole gets interesting. The pin placement is everything here. If it's a red flag, it's on the flattened out left side of the green and a relatively easy par. But the other 75 percent of the green is much tougher, sloping downward all over the place so that a less-than-perfect shot will either go through and out the back or will slide off the front of the green down into a depression.

I rarely par the hole and it's not at all uncommon for me to wind up with a double bogey.

But yesterday I had a good tee shot, 200 yards just over the crest of the hill in the middle of the fairway. My second shot was one of the best I've ever hit on this hole. With the pin placed far to the right near the back, I put my shot slightly to the right of center and far enough back that it didn't roll away. I was left with about an 18-foot putt and my goal was to get it close enough to tap in for par.

At least that was the plan. What actually happened was I rolled in the 18-footer for a birdie, my first ever on No. 6 when the flag was blue.

It was kind of an odd way to shoot 42, but it definitely fit in with that old saying about golf -- all it takes is one great hole or even one great shot to leave you feeling wonderful and eager to get back out there again.

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