Shot of your life?

So everyone has to have the shot of their life.

Mine was in a tourney, I skyballed my driver 150 yards into right rough then hit my 4 wood 220 yards from a severe downhill lie to 12 feet.

There must be some great stories from some of you guys

Was playing last summer and having an absolute mare - slicing every drive woefully, couldn't make a putt, the ground was rock solid and I was thinning every approach, it was hot and I was carrying and tired. I was playing off 26 but looking more like 36, it was ridiculous. I got to hole 13, a 490 yard slight dog-leg right par 5, and having already all-but given up on my round I took driver against my better judgement and absolutely smoked one out of the sweet spot, laser-straight, and counted it out with my mate's GPS as 332 yards. Went into the green over a lake with a 6 iron to 12 feet and two putted for my only birdie of the day. Every time I step on the tee now, no matter how badly I'm playing, even if I've hit 80 or 90 bad ones already, I know I still have the potential to hit a good one. That's why I hate golf! One good shot a round keeps you coming back for more! :D

First round I broke 80.  Was playing great on front nine until bogey, double on 8, and 9 to finish the front with a disappointing 41.  But 10's a very short par 5, playing something like 495 that day, hoping to recover there.  Push-fade my driver well right into the trees, think my chances of breaking 80 that day are gone.  Get up to the ball, miraculously have a tiny window between two trees right at the pin, sitting ~215, decent but not great lie.  Hit my 2h, best shot of my life, thread right through the window, dead straight, land, short hop, stop, 4-5 feet below the hole.  Make the putt for eagle, shoot a 33 on the back to break 80 for the first time with a 74!

This one is easy.

My first eagle.  Par 5 - got to JUST off the green in two.  Did my pre-shot routine like usual for the 30-ft (or so) chip and proceeded to launch the ball well stronger than I ever intended to and it slam-dunked into the hole!

A close second would be the final hole of an outing when I drove my tee shot well right and had the ball about 2 ft above my feet on a steep mound.  I aimed well right of the green/flag - like 10 yds right of the edge of the green - for my second shot (as the textbook says you should) and hit a a short iron (maybe an 8 IIRC?) to about 2 ft from the hole.  A great birdie to finish.....

During my first round ever breaking 90, I got to the #17 tee, a 125 yard par-3.  The pin was back right, and I envisioned fading a six-iron right to the pin.  And I did so, and knocked in the one foot putt for a birdie-2 en route to an 87 (I parred the par-4 finishing hole).  Of course, I had no idea where I stood until after the round.

Other candidates:

- A few weeks ago, my first round back after not playing for about two months.  On the first par-3, hit a 4-hybrid to just over a foot.

- June 2008, hit my personal best drive ever:  283 yards.  I carried the water hazard that I was contemplating laying up short of.  I've yet to measure another over 245, and I average maybe 215 on a good day even now.

- I have twice hit my pitching wedge to a tap-in distance, and I've had the club the least amount of time of any in my bag currently!

Never have hit a "shot of my life" yet....that's why I keep coming back to the golf course to try again!

I just want to commend you for you honesty.  My best ever VERIFIABLE drive was 276 - GPS verified.  I gotta wonder how many of these gaudy internet claims of 'averaging'  275-300+ drives are verifiable?

The frigging pros don't hit it any longer than that.

Hard to pick a favorite-1) 2nd shot on a par 5, from the rough a 245 yd 16* hybrid to 4 feet, made the eagle putt; 2) best drive I ever hit, GPS measured 348 yds, straight down the middle of the fairway, led to a birdie; 3) 18 foot birdie putt on the 18th hole last May to shoot even par (72) for the first (and to date only) time.

Honorable mention goes to holing out from 115 with a PW for my first eagle on a par 4.

The day I beat Walter Hagen.    The story goes in Hagen's hayday, he always won the PA championship at Water Gap country club.      There's this little par 3 playing to probably 130 yards, but it's played from one hill top to another - nothing but mountain side on any side of the green, going down probably a hundred feet.      So it's the equivilent of shooting onto an island - you have no choice but to make the green.      Anyways, story goes Hagen shanked one & went down the hill & cost him an 8 on the hole, never recovered & he lost the tournament - to this day, the hole is called "Hagen's Folly".      I hit the green & made about a 20 footer (best putt in memory) - my first birdie ever & beat Hagen !!

My best shot yet would probably be when I holed out for eagle from 90 yards on a Par 5 when playing with my club pro. My next best shot was when I went for a difficult par 5 in two from 237 out. I hot my 3 wood to about an inch and a half. Almost an albatross.

Theres a few that come to mind but I think it comes down to 2.

1.  Sliced my drive on 18 (on the wrong side of the trees).  We were down 1 and I sliced a 3-wood through about 20 trees and stuck the green from about 240.  9/10 times I would have hit the first tree.

2.  Ball hopped into the water near the green on a par 5.  Saw the ball submerged in about 4 inches of water.  Took the shoes off, grabbed the lob wedge, and prayed to the golf Gods.  Nearly sank the birdie, but saved the par to win the hole.

Both took place while golfing in MD (which is a vacation from CT) with my dad and two fellow workers.  Neither shot will ever be duplicated in my golf days.  Although I hope I can add more fun ones to the list.

Well, you should know by now, there's the "real" average and then there's the "internet" average.

In all seriousness, I think that some of the numbers being posted are inflated not because the player is lying.  Rather, they may be using the measurements from holes with the wrong type of layout.  A hole's distance is calculated from the tee box to the center of the fairway to the center of the green.  However, if a hole has a severe dogleg and you cut the corner, then your driving distance is probably going to be inflated.

For instance, I played a 400 yard par 4 with almost a 90-degree dogleg left with my bud.  We both hit drives @ 265 yards, but because my bud hit his shot straight down the center of the fairway, he was left with a 135 yard approach shot.  In contrast, I pulled my drive @ 20 yards to the left of his.  Since this was on the hole side of the fairway, I had an 115 yard approach shot.  Now, based on the distances we had left on our respective approach shots, it would appear that I hit my drive 20 yards further than he did.  However, this wasn't the case because if you measured our drives in a straight line from the tee box to our ball, the actual distances the balls traveled were identical.

All in all, while I'm sure there's some internet embellishments regarding driving distances being thrown around, I think there may be an equal (if not more) amount of numbers posted based on unintentional faulty calculations.

I have a few:

Holing out for eagle from 25 yards..one hopper.

3 wood pin high from 245 out working it around the dog leg and two massive Norfolk pines.

Hitting the flag last week from 120 and have a kick-in from 2 feet.

In a tournament last autumn, on the first hole a par 5, I was lying next to a rock after the tee-shot, decided to go for it anyway and got it like 10 yards forward into rough, from there my third shot landed middle of the fairway within 80 yards of the green.  Partners I was playing with were lying next to green or in bunker in 2.  I put every inch of feel into the fourth shot and got a low spinner with my 56 degree wedge that stopped 20 feet in front of the hole on an elevation got the spin on it to roll back into the slope and after rolling it stopped inches away.... for my easy par. Probably the best shot I have hit ever, my feeble description does not do it justice.

Shot of my life eh..

It would have been the being in the trees, so i decided to take a 3-wood out and do a 160 yard punch shot, the ball went about 3 yards off the ground the whole way, it ended up hole high just off the green.

I had a lie in Mrytle Beach were i was on the side of a bunker, in the rough. So i had to take a baseball swing with a 7-iron, i put the ball just on the fringe, about 20 feet from the hole.

140 yd, par 3, with a 35 mph wind.  Had to hit a 3 iron about 30 yards left of the green, and I swear the ball got all the way over the green and then blew back and landed 10 feet from the hole!  And yes, I made the birdie putt.

Probably the 2-iron I hit from ~230 into a breeze on the toughest hole at Sherwood Forest last year. As flush as I've ever hit a long iron; one of those that the instant after impact but before you look up you know you've hit a perfect shot. Right over the flag, pitched about 6 feet over and stopped about 20 feet past the flag. Pity I missed the putt but that type of shot is the sort of thing that makes me come back for more.

Honourable mention to the single ace I've ever had with a nice 8-iron. Pitched a few feet short of hole and trickled in.

Not of my life, but my best shot of this year was on 3/30/11.  191 yards out from back pin, was in light rough on the right fairway edge, with only a glimpse of flag as the green is in a bit of a valley.  I hit one of the most straight 5-iron darts of my life with the ball landing within 5 feet of the hole, lying in the middle of the flag's early morning shadow on the green.  Very nice to bag the season's first birdie on such a nice shot.