“How is that possible?” Father, son offers 17 million to 1 golf moment

Part of the golf attraction, its magnetism, is that you can hit it on any day and do something extraordinary. Any swing (elusive combination of rhythm, feeling and timing) can create magic with nature as a background.

Jim Rohrstaff knew that feeling. That moment. He has lived his whole life in golf. From his days as a club professional to his current role as a partner in a traditional partner, where he developed golf courses and community. Kalamazoo, Michigan is a golf lifeguard.

But experience can’t prepare you for lightning strikes when the golf god offers something so rare that you may be the only person on Earth who has experienced it.

Rohrstaff and his family – his wife Kara and sons Blake and Eric took on a nine-day six-course golf tour in Scotland, playing hits from Nairn to Castle Stuart and Royal Dornoch. The 4th day of their journey saw them reaching Cullen Links, an original work by Tom Morris, who dabbled in Rohrstaff’s radar, thanks to the host of the No Bisting podcast.

“When we got there, the atmosphere was very, very strong,” Jim Rohrstaff told Golf.com via a Scottish phone call. “It was a great day in Cullen. It was a stunning, amazing day.”

Cullen Links was originally founded in 1870, with Tom Morris, the oldest nine-hole design. In 1905, the “World’s Shortest True Connection” expanded to 18 holes. It currently plays just over 4,600 yards, and is 63, three and one-five. Rohrstaffs sees Cullen as an ideal route to the highlands at the entrance.

But even Tom Morris, the old man wouldn’t expect a Golf Kismet waiting for Rohrstaffs.

Jim started the day green and two harsh birdies. The family floated along the edge of the seaside of the coast of Morey and enjoyed a quirky link test 155 years ago.

Jim and 18-year-old Blake both had four obstacles, making double bogeys in the third and seventh stroke. Blake’s brother Eric is a bit new to golf, and he hit 25 feet with 6 irons and rolled the birdie in a long putt. golf.

Next comes 280 yards 4-8-8, a three-story walk and two swings made by the golf god.

“I brought the driver and the 3-wood,” Jim Rohrstaff said. “Blake just brought the driver. I have a T-shirt and I said I might hit 3 wood.”

Then, some of Blake’s kind father-son ribs (“that’s not enough”), Jim decides to hit the driver.

Jim helps toward the top right, hitting a sleek, locked cut driver hitting the green. He watched the ball sail on the green bunker on the left, landing in a rough place, kicking his right hand to the putter surface.

Jim said, “I was like, ‘Oh, that would be really good.’ “I watched it jump to the right and stopped watching. ”

Next comes Blake, who fixes it and tells his father that he will “hit the bullet” the driver.

Blake opened his tee. It landed in the front left part of the green, passing through the hole, but then began to come back.

Strangely, Jim and Blake were 4 shots for the first time, and they wanted to track the ball here for the first time. They saw them landing, then returned to the stairs, and met Kara and Eric, who lifted up and shot their approach. Kara missed the green, while Eric was 25 feet away from the pin.

When the family arrived in the green, they began to look for Jim and Blake’s ball. But there is only one ball on the surface of the putter, and that is Eric’s ball.

“I left, I was on the left, just above the bunker, and I looked around. It opened. I was like, where is my golf ball?” Jim recalled. “So I looked around because there was only one ball in the green, and I thought, OK, where am I?

Jim returns to the bunker he carries and inspects. No ball. Blake’s ball was supposed to be in the back of the green or just behind the green.

At that time, Eric looked for his brother’s ball, walked past the cup and found a golf ball that would become the story of the Coulan Club in the coming years.

“Oh, there are two here,” Eric looked in the cup.

“He’s like, there are two balls,” Jim said with a smile. “And he wasn’t excited at all. He was like, there were two balls here. We were like, ‘Shut up’. So we got there and Kara took out her phone and I mean, I started jumping around like an idiot.

Jim Rohrstaff and his son Blake both won the 280-yard 4-shot eighth ace on the Cullen link, a 17 million chance.

“That was my 11th hole,” Jim said. “That was Blake’s first. Obviously, I never had a 4th shot.

“I didn’t really connect these points at first,” Blake said. “I heard Dad said there was a ball inside, and I thought it was just his. He was like, ‘No, we’re both here.’ I started going to the monkey, too.”

Rohrstaffs immediately attracted their Birdie Tequila, a family golf staple, and then called the club to tell them what was going on and inform anyone there that once they finished their tour, the whiskey was on them. When they arrived at the clubhouse, the fate of golf took another turn for Rohrstaffs. Bartender Kenny recognizes the Tara Iti golf club logo, home club of Rohrstaff in New Zealand, and his daughter Madison cheers Kara several times at the club. It was followed by Madison’s celebration, and then a dozen people in the Cullen Links Clubhouse attended a double-decker party with Rohrstaffs.

When Jim went to bed that night, long after the family gathering was over, he still couldn’t believe their cosmic events in Cullen.

Jim said, “I tell you, I’m lying in bed all night in my mind.” “Well, how could that happen? How could it be?”

He thought of Lahinch’s Blind 3-shot story and the ball once stood on the other side of the dune and placed the ball in the hole when it was generously tilted. But on this day in Coolun, no one helped Rollstaffs. It’s just golf, and in all the magnetic brilliance, brings a moment when it’s now a family legend.

Jim said: “I still can’t surround it. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of, and I don’t believe it myself if I’m not there.”

That’s golf.