My First Golf Trophy

I don't think I'm very good at golf even after 11 years of playing.

As many have noticed, I've been using the same set of irons for all these years. The core set that I first bought for $199 plus free golf bag and putter. Some clubs have changed, but the core has remained.

That said, there I was on the Danang Montgomerie Golf Course hole #8 blue tee facing a 115m shot Par 3 hole, having played a lousy round thus far. I choose a 7 iron because I'm not confident with my 9 iron, even though the 7 gets me to about 120m on a good swing, so I risked overshooting the green.

I tee up my Noodle ball with a short tee, and try not to think about my lousy first 10+ holes (we started from hole #13 for this tournament). My swing comes down a little fast and there is a slight topping and the shot is not a clean one. Somehow the ball shoots out straight horizontally across the water with hardly any lob, hits the steep gradient of the green fringe, and bounces slowly towards the hole. It stops about half a meter from the hole.

Immediately, the whole flights knows I'll win this nearest-to-pin.

I buy a round of beers celebrating my expected win.

During the gala dinner at night, I am expectedly announced as NTP winner for the hole.

The most uncanny part is that back in 2015, I played in the exact same competition, on the exact same course, and won the NTP on the exact same hole! At that time when I was announced the winner, my name was cruelly mangled so badly by the Vietnamese MC, that we all thought that it wasn't me who won. Then a month on, the organizer emailed to tell me that it was me who won and the trophy would be shipped to me. Two years later, I've accepted that it got lost in the mail.

This might just be my proudest golf moment yet.