I Can Play Golf...

The plan today was to play Glenbrook because my playing partner had never played that course before and wanted to try something new. I scared him off by making some comments about the course conditions. It's not that I didn't want to play there, I love that course. I just think the that for the price, the conditions suck and I'd prefer to take him there when the turf awakens.

So we decided to play Evergreen Point. I played there once back when I first started, it was June 28th, and I had a coupon for a free birthday round. Evergreen Point was the third regulation course I played and I scored well with a 116. Not bad for my third round especially considering it's rating and slope of 70.0/124 are similar to The Battleground (70.8/125).

For me, I think Evergreen Point is a bit hoidy-toidy. I mean, you don't get a bucket of balls, you get a little sack. And the guy that took my money spent several silent minutes looking at my Golf18Houston discount rate printout (I paid $35.00 where the regular rate is $44.00) and accepted it with his nose so high in the air I thought we were experiencing an eclipse. What... Ever... I guess I'm just a muni-boy at heart and the whole atmosphere of the place had me a little nervous through the first few holes. I started pretty good though, with a bogey and a par. Then I dropped a triple on number three (well, it was the #1 handicap hole on the course).

Then, I just played solid golf making 11 straight bogies.

E L E V E N straight bogies.

Eleven straight bogies!

Then I made a PAR!!

That was one nice stretch of solid play - for me anyway :^)

Then I hit 4 balls into the water on #16. One off the tee that I bombed 270 into the wind where I needed about 290 to carry the water. I wasn't trying to carry the water, I just hit my shot a little bit to much to the left. Crap! I was lying three where I took the drop and I still had to carry about 110 yards of water and beyond that was a maze of fancy bunkers that lined the left side of the fairway leading up to the green. So I had about 185 into the wind and uphill to reach the green. Up until that tee shot, I was playing the same ball I started with. I was hitting very solid shots and I was confident I could reach the green, or at least find the sand (which I have no problems hitting out of). I decided to hit a 5i instead of the 4i because I felt more confident about hitting it straight (I still tend to fade the 4i) and I felt I could at least get to the front of the green (or thereabouts). Yes, I hit the next three into the water. At this point, I was on ESC cruise control (not going to score less than 9) but I needed to make this shot. It had become personal. I landed my 9th shot with an easy swing onto the back of the green where it rolled off by about 5 feet. I had made 12 strokes (including penalties) before I finally pulled the ball out of the hole.

So, what happened? Well, the shot was 185 yards, uphill, and fraught with danger. I really didn't feel (consciously anyway) intimidated with the look of the shot, I was more concerned with putting a little extra swing speed since with the wind, and it being uphill, 185 was pushing it a bit for me with the 5i. Now the problem with swinging harder is that it just plain gets exponentially harder to keep your eye on the ball unless you can keep the swing smooth. So, I figure I was a little jerky and just shanked three consecutive shots into the drink. I slowed down on the fourth one and nearly flew the green. Yeah, I need to read my own blog once in awhile and realize (again) that a 100% swing produces crap pretty much 100% of the time.

OK, where were we... Blow up hole, scoring a 9 with ESC.

Wait, the story doesn't end there. The next hole was also slightly into the wind, but more left to right; a par three. I tried a little too hard to draw the ball into the wind, and I made a sort of low hook shot into the water! What the... I never hook with my irons!!! Well, I took a triple on that one.

I pulled it together in the end finishing with a bogey on the long par 4 that is the number 2 handicap hole on the course. Final score - 96!!! Very disappointing since I was well on my way to breaking 90 on a tough course, but still a NET -6!!!

Here's the stats:

Fairways hit... 5 (3 just missed)
GIRs........... 5 (3 just missed)
Birdies........ 0
Pars........... 3 (1 up and down)
Putts......... 37
Bogeys........ 13 <---- Wohoo!!!
Doubles........ 0
Triples........ 2
Balls lost .... 5 (5 water)

While I can kick myself for blowing what could easily have been my best round ever, I'm very happy with that score. It was only me second time out there, and the one time I was out there, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. My playing at Green Caye has really brought my game up a notch. My driving was very straight and long (measured one to 290). I made solid contact with my approach shots. I could have done better with my short game though, I left many chips short (only one 1-putt). My putting could have been better, I 3-putted three holes and they were all GIRs - yeah, I admit that's pretty bad (and those were my only 3-putts).

Well, there you have it. I feel really good about my game. I don't feel like I had a lucky round, I feel like I can play golf. I'm just gonna keep doin' what I'm doin' including signing up for another month at Green Caye (in a week or so? - maybe earlier?). I'm going to work extra hard with my wedges and putter.

Look out Battleground,
-Greg