It's said that records are made to be broken.
At least a few long time Jackson Golf Club members would argue that this one may not be.
Austin Reitz of Orange City broke the Jackson Golf Club course record Monday with an eight-under 29.
He was playing with his father-in-law, Wade Wacker and brother-in-law, Shad Wacker. He married Lacey Wacker last summer.
Reitz broke the previous course record of 30, once apiece by Brent Chozen and Dan Hinton and by Brett Benson on several occasions.
Reitz played golf at Northwestern College, where he played on three Great Plains Athletic Conference team champions and on three NAIA national championship qualifying teams. He's tied for seventh on the school's all-time career scoring average list (75.9).
"I've known Shad since my freshman year of college," he said. "I've played Jackson maybe seven or eight times on weekends so I was a little familiar with it. It's completely different from what I play on a daily basis," said Reitz, who calls Landsmeer Golf Club in Orange City his home course.
"Landsmeer is kind of a links-style course so you can hit driver anywhere and everywhere," he said. "Jackson's a little shorter and tighter with the trees. I told Wade during the middle of the round that I was pleasantly surprised with how nice the greens are and the overall condition of the course. It's a fun track."
Austin said last week was his first time playing Jackson this year and some of the hole numbers have changed.
Reitz described his round.
"On hole number one, which is the same it's always been, I hit driver a couple feet short of the green and had a pretty easy up and down for a birdie there. On hole two again I hit driver and had like a 30-yard pitch shot that I hit to a foot and tapped that in for a birdie. Hole three is the old number nine and I hit it into the trees but had a good punch-out to 15-20 feet and ended up making the putt. Then to the downhill par five, where I hit a pretty good tee shot and had like 94 yards so I had a little flip wedge in there and wound up making eagle.
His bid for the course record could have gone south on the next hole, but Reitz got out of trouble.
"The next hole was the one hole that could have ruined everything," he said. "I hit my tee shot out of bounds left and was over in the trees over by the bush line but punched out to 70 yards and got up and down for par there so that was kind of the round-saver there.
Reitz would make pars on six and seven and then had another eagle on eight.
"I hit a pretty good tee shot in the middle of the fairway there and had around 200 yards, hit six-iron to a couple feet and made eagle.
"Walking off the green Wade asked me what I was at and I said six-under or so. I'd kinda forgot about a birdie early in the round so I ended up being at seven-under so I said to those guys 'well, why don't we go make one more? I made a 25-foot putt on nine to finish it off so it was pretty fun."
Did Austin have any idea during the round that setting a course record was possible?
"They were kind of quiet the whole time," Reitz said of his playing partners. "They didn't really say a whole lot. We were just going out to play for fun on a Monday of a holiday weekend.
"They told me after the fact that they were standing around after I was five-under through four thinking it was like I was throwing a no-hitter in baseball. They were whispering not wanting to say a whole lot."
Austin wound up 10-plus strokes better than his playing partners that day. How does that sort of thing sit with his father-in-law, who has been known to be more than a little competitive?
"He made the comment to me last Sunday that if 'I'm going to start playing with you more I'm going to have go practice' so I think the competitive edge still gets the best of him there."
After his playing career at Northwestern, Reitz joined the Red Raiders staff as an assistant coach. He says he plays a couple times per week, including playing in a league on Wednesdays.
Beyond that, he's looking forward to the return of student-athletes to campus next month. Northwestern finished fifth out of 11 teams at the GPAC Championship last season.