98 at The Battleground...

What a day - Busted 100 at The Battleground!!!

I met up with Bob, who I met through MyGlofBuddy.com. Bob is getting back into the game after a 13-year break. I thought Bob played pretty well but struggled with pushing and slicing his drives. He became frustrated near the end of the round and given that he was a 12-13 handicapper, I can certainly understand his frustration. Bob is looking to get his game back, and I'm looking forward to playing a few rounds with him along the way.

I started the round in a big way. I declared my target and let it rip. My ball flew perfectly at my target and landed on the fairway some 281 yards from the tee. I followed that with a hybrid that landed just short of the green and off to the right on this 461-yard par 5. A chip and two putts later and I recorded a par on number one.

Another notable hole was the 13th. This is a tough hole (the No. 2 HCP for the course), a par 4 of 409 yards that plays into the wind. I got under the ball on my drive and was left with about 250 yards to the green. I was on the fairway and I knew I would not be able to reach the green with my hybrid. Given my success at the range with the fairway woods, I decided to try the 3 wood. I hit a nice shot that landed left of the fairway about one foot from the ditch. The shot was straight, just pulled a little and flew about 220 yards into the wind. Not bad for the first use of a fairway wood on the course in quite some time. Just another confirmation that my "tucked elbow" swing technique is working.

I won't go into any more narrative details, but here are the stats for the round:

Fairways hit... 4
GIRs........... 5
Pars........... 5
Putts......... 35
Bogeys......... 5
Doubles........ 5
Triples........ 2
Bad holes...... 1
Balls lost .... 3 (water)

The bad hole was the 12th. It's a par 3 165-yard hole and I shanked the tee shot off to the left and behind some trees. Since I had no shot at the green, I punched out. From there I chipped into the bunker, close to the lip. I got out in two shots, and down in two putts. Now I don't know about any of you, but if my "blow-up" hole is an "8", I'm just going to count my blessings. Lord knows it could have easily been a 9, 10, or 11 (hopefully I won't see anymore 13s!!!).

My driving was pretty good even though the "Fairways Hit" stat does not show it. I hit many long drives that were just off of the fairway. My average driving distance for the round was 246 yards (based on fairways hit). I still managed to slice a couple though.

Lessons learned:
I need to keep my focus on the back nine at The Battleground. Much of the front nine plays crosswind and so I focus more on drives. The back nine has some more open fairways that play downwind and offer an opportunity for the 300-yard monster drive. Going for the monster drive is a low percentage shot. I need to keep focused and be happy with 250+ and on the fairway.

New Goals:
Now that I've broken 100 at The Battleground, I need to set some new goals. I think breaking 90 there is a pretty lofty goal, so I'll go for 95. In addition, I would like to continue playing at sub-100 level for all of my rounds and so that will remain a daily goal on all courses. Sub-100 golf is still a pretty good goal because I have played 17 rounds and only broken 100 twice. However, I feel that I have learned what I need to do to play at the sub-100 level and I feel I should be able to maintain this level of play.

Stay below 100
Break 95 at The Battleground
Break 90 at Bayou, Pasadena, and San Jac
Make more than 6 pars in a round

Bayou and Pasadena have similar slope and rating, yet I have yet to break 100 at Pasadena. I fully expect to play much better there now that I am driving the ball straight.

Loose Ends...
One of the loose ends from previous posts that I wanted to tie up is the Olympus W-10 digital voice recorder. I received this awhile back and used it once when I played Pasadena. It worked like a charm for scorekeeping and note taking. I took a couple of photos and I got what I expected - about cell phone camera quality (see a shot in this post). If you like to walk I recommend this little device as an alternative to writing your score on the scorecard.

Next up...

I'm thinking about playing tomorrow in the early afternoon. If I do I'll play Bayou since that is the better course for walking.

Dreaming about the 80s,
-Greg