by Darrell Waltrip

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It was something for me. I walked up to that hole, and Champions Tour players Fuzzy Zoeller and Jim Thorpe were standing there and talking about it as groups played through. A tournament preceded our contest. Thorpe and Zoeller were telling me how difficult the hole was as Zoeller zinged a few onto the green and Thorpe hit a couple in the water. Very few people even got a ball on the green, which really surprised me, but the wind was blowing really hard. It's a difficult shot.

Fred Funk put it the best when I asked him what made this par-3 with water around it so tough. He said, "When you're coming up to the 71st hole of a tournament, and you just need to get a par — that's what makes it so tough." With that in mind, it gave me a different perspective on the hole.

Thorpe asked, "What do you hit on a hole like this?" I joked, "I hope I hit the green." He gave me a driving iron and said he could hit it 220 yards. It was a 150-yard hole, but I would rather go over than come up short. I decided to play the hole by taking it down the left side, fading it in, hitting the green and rolling to the hole. I've been playing golf for 30 years, and maybe two or three times have I ever called a shot.

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But the cameras were rolling, people were watching and I took a whack at that thing. Son of a gun, it started off down the left side, and I could tell it had the distance. It had the fade, and sure enough, it rolled up six feet from the pin, which was the closest any ball had been to that hole all day long. I didn't warm up or anything. I just whacked it. That started my day off really well.

During the contest, nine players — three from baseball, three from football and three from racing — took 18 shots, and only three landed on the green. Jarrett hit two on the green and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Trent Green hit the other one. So obviously, it didn't make for the most exciting and thrilling tournament, but we had fun. Zoeller pretty much took over the show as the coach of the MLB team. And I loved working with Tim McCarver. He was a cool guy. It was the first time that I had ever met him, and we worked well together. We had a good time.