Ben DeArmond is one of those 29,000-some members of the PGA of America, the organization that represents hard-working guys and gals at clubs and practice facilities around the country, not to be confused with the guys on the PGA Tour, who are basically America’s houseguests.
So you figure Ben was pretty elated when they told him he’d get to play in the LECOM Classic, a Web.com Tour event at Lakewood Ranch outside Sarasota, Fl., best know as the home of over-the-top basketball analyst Dick “Dickie V” Vitale.
Ben is the pro at the TPC Treviso Bay down in ritzy Naples.
You figure he’d be a bit nervous and he was. He bogeyed the first hole on Thursday then came the second, a tough par four with water down both sides, every golfer’s nightmare, no matter how good or bad you might be.
Ben pumped his first tee shot into the water. Then his second, then his third, then his fourth. By then he surely had to be reeling and might take a deep breath and find someway to get one on dry ground.
Nope.
A fifth went into the deep and it was Gray Lady Down with a sixth.
Finally, the seventh found dry land. He was lying 13, maybe, the math gets a bit difficult, might have to bring in Bryson DeChambeau for the correct calculation.
By the time DeArmond holed out, he put a 17 on his scorecard. Which might bring out the age-old question — how did you make 17? From now on, he might have to channel that old line Arnold Palmer once used but modify it to say: “I missed a three-footer for 16.”
Ben referred to the drama as “an out-to-body” experience. Out of body and out of mind sounds suitable as he became a real life Roy McAvoy, the fictional driving range pro from the movie Tin Cup, who pumped a few balls into the water at a U.S. Open.
DeArmond’s front-nine score was 54, thanks to the 17 at the second. But give the guy a lot of credit. On the back nine he made eight pars and a bogey for 37.
His 91 left him last in the field, but first in the hearts of anyone who’s ever pumped several into the water on one hole.
For the record, his 91 left him 27 shots behind first-round leader Maverick McNealy, who shot a nifty 64.
