Breakfast
Bowl

Spring. A gray morning, a light drizzle just finished, the greens at PopStroke Hamlin running a little slower than usual and smelling like cut grass and possibility.

I came early on purpose. I wanted the course to myself, to practice lag putts the way my grandfather taught me: don't aim for the hole, aim for a barrel around it. Get it close. Let the next one be easy.

Forty feet on hole 5, up a slope and over a ridge. Close. Thirty-five on hole 6. Closer. By hole 8, I was tapping in like a man who had his life in order.

I celebrated with the Breakfast Bowl.

It starts with tater tots, a foundation worth building on. Then sausage. Then bacon, because one breakfast meat is a suggestion and two is a commitment. Pico de gallo, bright and cool. Avocado. A scatter of green onion. And at the summit, a fried egg, perched there like a ball balanced on the lip, one nudge from glory. Finally, avocado lime ranch, tying the whole thing together.

I cut into the egg and sat there a moment in the quiet, fork in hand, the drizzle gone and the patio all mine.

The sun came out over the 9th green just as I finished. My grandfather would have called that a good read.