It is interesting that golfers think that every shot should be a great. This unwavering believe in hope that each shot will result in magical things is absolute. Unfortunately, not every shot results in great things. Sometimes it is better to lucky than good. This happens countless times during a season and as a matter of fact, it happened twice on the same hole in my last round. My group chuckled about it and commented that both shots were a great miss and that everyone needs to be lucky to score good scores.

I was playing the par 5, 16th hole on my last round and hit an okay drive. I was way back and decided to hit a three hybrid to about 75 yards. Well, I pulled up a bit on my swing and hit a line drive into an outcropping of rocks. Fortunately, my ball skipped forward off the rocks to about 140 yards from the green. What a great miss!

I decided to play my next shot with an eight iron because the 140 yards uphill was the perfect club. Again I popped up and thinned my shot to within 5 feet of the pin. Another great miss!

After sinking my birdie putt, I lamented that sometimes you need to be good to be lucky or was it lucky to be good. It is a challenge to tell sometimes. But, having a great miss is often the critical shot that makes or breaks your round of golf.

I would suggest that I make at least one lucky shot a round. Not as fortunate as the back to back shots in my last round, but when a ball bounces out into the fairway from the trees. Hitting short, but bouncing up because I hit a hard spot around the green. Picking a tight line near a hazard only to bounce through the opposite side of the hazard. We experience a great miss from time to time.

While writing this article, I was trying to think of the greatest miss that worked out the best. Truthfully, I have has so many great misses through the years that it is a challenge to pick just one. However, if I had to choose I think the time that I hit the top of the cart fence and bounced onto the par 5 green. I did miss my putt for eagle, but it was likely the greatest miss of my career. You can read all the details here.

A great miss does affect your golf score. I my case, my last great miss resulted in birdie that lead to me shooting a two over par 73. This low score could have easily resulted in a 78 or so if I did not have two great misses in a row. Golf is funny like that and hopefully my luck will continue.

Just to prove my point: This Tweet was added on the 4th of July:

Probably not how he intended to find the green …@RickieFowler (somehow) reaches the par-5 14th in two. pic.twitter.com/PkniGFteuw

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 3, 2021

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!