Since 2000, me and 27 of my closest friends go to Cape Cod and have three days of fun and mayhem-- and manage to get three rounds of golf in as well! The friendly tourney is set up as a Ryder Cup style event. Two-teams of 14 are chosen by the captain's at our "draft"...watching 28, 40-something grown men pay more attention to the goofy golf clothes they wear is quickly forgotten once we tee off. We have 10-handicaps to XX-handicaps but every person playing is a competitor and takes it very serious. It's what we all love most. Our match was during day 2 and it was back and forth most of the day. It was a two-man scramble format so we had two looks at each shot. My partner is about a 18-20 and I play at about a 12...our opponents were probably both 12-14 handicaps. They finished the day at -2 and we finished at -3 (with three bogies, two eagles and three birdies!) The match was back and forth-- then, on the 9th hole, we took the lead at 1up. We got to 10 and our opponents had a poor tee shot but managed to make a 10-foot par putt to make our birdie putt that much more difficult. We missed and went to 11, 1up. At the eleventh, we managed to pull off a birdie and go to the 12th hole, 2up. The 12th hole was a short (137 yards) par three with the pin was placed directly behind the bunker. We had honors so my partner went first and hit his tee shot, pin high, to the right fringe. The green is slightly elevated and I usually fly my 9-iron around 135 and it releases to 140-ish. My partner said he tried to "smooth his 150" and knock it down. Because he was pin high, I contemplated going to the 8-iron but stayed with my gut and said I'd rather swing hard than tentative. I lined up my shot and set up to cut the ball over the bunker. There was a slight breeze I didn't expect to impact the distance so it was a slightly-above-stock-9-iron I was hitting. In the air, the ball was cutting the way I'd hoped but feared I underestimated the wind and kept asking for it to go. When it finally landed, I felt relief that I carried the bunker...and then, a few tenths of a second later-- it disappeared. I audibly said, "WHAT THE..." because I felt like someone stole the ball...or, it went missing...only after a few moments did the entire foursome realize what had happened...and then we flipped out! As happy as I was, my playing partner was truly and genuinely WAY more excited than I was...to the point, I swear, he had tears in his eyes. It was quite a moment and the whole foursome made me feel extremely happy and proud. It was pretty incredible. Our opponents still needed to take their tee shots-- and after a few moments of high-fiving and re-capping-- they stepped up to the tee box. I remember thinking it must have been a little bit like Jose Maria trying to putt after Justin Leonard's putt in the '99 Ryder Cup...kind of a tough act to follow. Both guys landed on the green but we had left the 12th tee with a 3up lead. As we got to the 13th tee I realized, AFTER I had written on the ball-- I hadn't taken a picture of it in the hole...so, we went back...and I took the attached picture of the ball in the hole. Frantically, we went to the 13th tee and I promptly sliced my tee shot into the woods and our 3up lead went back to 2up in the span of 10-minutes...a very eventful, 10-minutes! Thankfully, we held on to win the match 2-and-1 on the 17th hole-- securing a point for our team, Team MartyBall! Pretty humbling day as the entire group of Cape Cup players coming in on the 18th (our group was the first group off), one by one, congratulated me...one of the best days of my golfing life!