Whole Lotta Post...

Holy moley I have so much to blog about...

A couple of posts ago I said "Next time I'll post some thoughts on the event in general and the difference between how we play in a tournament vs. how we play day-to-day."

Note to self - Never include in a post what you'll post about next time!!

Catch Up:

The tournament in general... The tournament started about forty minutes after the scheduled start time. The first group and starting hole were assigned, then the first group took off for the first hole. Even though we yelled, "WAIT!!!, STOP!!!" the yells failed to overpower the wind (it was WINDY!!!) and they started while the rest of us waited for the remaining group/hole assignments. Did this screw up the shotgun start? You bet it did!!

After the group/hole assignments, there were a few rules questions brought up. To summarize, it was made known that you play the ball as it lies (no winter rules) and you putt out (no gimmies).

During the course of the tournament we noticed that many folks were taking a drop on the fairway after hitting the ball out of bounds. While it did not sit well with me, I let it go in the beginning because those who were doing it were likely not going to be in contention for any prize money. Then on the last hole, we saw two of the four guys hit it OB and jump in their cart (we did not see the first two hit their tee shot). These guys were in a group that reportedly was shooting well, so we called them on it and made them hit it again (and again, and again in one of their cases). We did not see the first two guys because they drove off as soon as the final ball was struck, but they were looking in the OB area for something.

Two points on this:

First, it's better to reivew the rules with the participants especially for a tournament like this where there are obviously many beginners.

Second, and this deals with the "how we we play in a tournament vs. how we play day-to-day" part of my promise, is that I generally took a drop for an OB hit when playing day to day. It just seems to be accepted as a way to keep up with the pace of play. Often I could argue that the results probably would not have changed. However, if you're playing in 20-30 mph winds, you face a much higher chance of messing up the second shot (or worse). I have in the past hit a provisional ball after an OB shot (which is the right thing to do) but it takes that much more time to look for the OB ball and hit the following shot of the provisional ball. Of course it gets more complicated if you hit the provisional OB.

So what do you do, hit or drop?

Since this enlightenment, I decided to start playing every round like it were a tournament and hit another ball.

Which brings me right up to the next topic, my Green Caye stats update. I can now say that after taking stroke and distance, the difference is NOT negligable as my current stats show my average score up almost two strokes in about 15 loops.

Stats ....... Current .. Last Month
--------------------------------
Greens ...... 1.5 ...... 1.89 . (per 9 holes)
Up and Down . 11 ....... 24 ... (percent parred of greens missed)
Ave Pars .... 2.2 ...... 3.0 .. (per 9 holes)
Ave Score ... 37 ....... 35.33
3 Putts ..... 0.9 ...... 0.89 . (per 9 holes)
4 Putts ..... 0.0 ...... 0.22 . (per 9 holes)
Ave Putts ... 17 ....... 17 ... (per 9 holes)

This is data from the 22 loops I've played at Green Caye since I signed up for another month on March 17th. No, there are no typos here. I have played 22 9-hole loops of the par three course in nine visits. Yes, this looks more like last September's stats.

What happened to my game? Well, part of the story is that I'm a man. You may recall how happy I have been that my "slower, flatter swing" has given me one to two clubs gain in distance. As you can guess, I couldn't leave well enough alone and (being a man...) I started swinging faster about the third trip down there and my consistency went out the window. Add to that that now I will hit another shot when I zing one OB and the results are in. Yeah, I need to ease up a bit. I'll go ahead and throw a couple more excuses in there and mention that it has been very windy and rainy. I feel I can play pretty well in the wind, but I had a heck of a time chipping off of wet soggy greenside turf for a few days.

The Big Ugly...

Since I encourage posting the bad news with the good, I set a new record during this period, 45. Yep, I shot a 45 on a par three course. We call that a flyer in the statistics world (and it shows). I was really having a bad day (is that not obvious) and I hit three balls OB. Two on the 9th where I carded a 7 to go along with the quartets of 4s and 5s and a 6 on the 8th (where I hit two into the water). I think bad day is an understatement. Now let's forget about that and move on to some good news...

New Personal Record: 86 at San Jac (Blues)

I played San Jac last Thursday in very windy conditions (SSE 20-30 mph). Here are the stats:

Fairways hit... 6
GIRs........... 4
Birdies........ 2
Pars........... 4
Putts......... 28
Bogeys......... 9
Doubles........ 2
Triples........ 1
Balls lost .... 0 (Can I get an Amen!!!)

This was my 39th regulation round and it brings my handicap down to 24.9

While I'm very happy about this, I really need to break 90 at some of the more difficult courses like The Battleground.

The more I reflect on these stats, the more I realize the importance of the short game. Since I don't hit a lot of greens, my greenside chips will make or break a round for me. Right now, I'm better off missing the green if hitting the green means a long putt.

No golf for me...

My wife worked this past weekend which meant I would not be playing any golf. That's all good because I sure have been playing a ton of golf. However, once I got the kids to bed I went out and grabber my putter. I putted around a bit before hitting the computer room.

It was during some reading on one of the golf forums (golfwrx or golfreview) that I stumbled into this link:

www.shot-online.com

I have Tiger Woods 2005 and I've played it quite a bit, so I didn't expect too much from this free online game. But after I downloaded and installed it, I was instantly hooked. It's a mix of golf and RPG gaming. The best part is that you get to play with other real people. If you like golf games, you'll like this! If you like RPG games like The Sims, you'll like this!! Really, you'll like this!!!

Go ahead and check it out!!! Once you figure it out, give me a hollar for a round. I'll bet you can guess my name - New2Golf

Cya on the virtual links,
-Greg