Shooting Your Age & Mike Agusta Spotlight

Are we getting older? You bet we are, but there’s a visceral beauty in this otherwise proverbial writing on the wall, especially when it relates to our game, we love to challenge ourselves with. Whether we took golf up as a young boy or came to golf later in our glory years, the game itself presents us with a myriad of milestones to aspire to. Maybe it’s breaking 90, 80 or 70 for some, others it may be finally making birdie on hole 11 or 8, and certainly to shoot our career low round. But the 2 holy grails that lie in waiting for all of us are the elusive hole -in-one and eventually “Shooting Your Age”

Did you know, the odds of making an ace are 12,500 to 1 attempt which equates to roughly one ace per 3125 rounds. (assuming 4 par 3’s on an 18-hole course)

Perhaps even more daunting are the odds on shooting our age, which surprisingly are roughly 9 in 1,000,000.

We all know guys who have had the good fortune of achieving one or both, yet many more who have not. There are so many factors to consider when it comes to shooting your age, not the least of which are your lifelong handicap range, physical well-being and the obvious factor that as we age our game will not be as it was. So, the next time you run into a fellow player who has shot his age, give him a firm handshake and congratulations with a cold beer in hand! He earned it fair and square. Perhaps that’s the beauty of it all. The older we get…..we can still hold out hope that one of these holy grails is just waiting in the wings.

Sppeaking of Shooting your Age, this month’s Member Spotlight highlights one of our fellow MGA members for exactly that reason.

Member Spotlight - Mike Agusta

Mike and his wife Diana are originally from Burlington, Vermont.  They would always take vacations to warm weather to escape the snow and cold of the Green Mountain state. On a trip to Wilmington in 2012 they both fell in love with the area during a stay at Mayfair. Wilmington had a Burlington feel to it with the colleges and downtown waterfront, so they bought their lot in Brunswick Forest on that trip 

Mike worked at IBM for over thirty years in various management and leadership capacities involving the design and manufacturing of semiconductors.  

They both moved into their new home in 2014 and joined CFN and have been playing here ever since. Mike truly enjoys CFN with its exceptional combination of beauty and challenge and thoroughly enjoys the competition and camaraderie of the MGA. Mike also runs a weekly Friday game, aka ‘the Blue tee game’, which is a combination of occasional good golf and even better banter among the boys! Not for the faint of heart!

Mikes most fond golf memories come from playing on the University of Vermont golf team.  They would play tournaments throughout New England and during the winter months would play at a Florida tournament called the Miami Invitational with colleges around the country. To this day, Mike stays in touch with his former teammates going over the highs and lows of tournament golf, not to mention the many funny stories that never grow old. 

Like many of us, Mike has had his share of golf accomplishments over the years. His most treasured prize is the one that lifetime golfers all try to achieve in “shooting their age” for the first time. On July 8^th during the weekly MGA competition, Mike achieved the “age” goal by carding a superb 2-under par 70 and now proudly displays his scorecard as a memento in his home. He encourages all to keep playing this wonderful game, because it can happen. Here’s to getting older!! 

Lastly, like most of us, we all have a dream foursome we would like to play with. For Mike, let’s have Ben Hogan for his technical skills, a guy named Jack for his winning skills and to ensure fun is had with all, add the late great Payne Stewart. Have fun Mike!