In my league last night had a good round going, bogeyed the first but had a kick in birdie on the 4th after a nice wedge in that flirted with a hole out eagle. Played the next 3 holes in +1, with the bogey coming on one of the tougher holes on our course so it’s really a good score for my level. Even made a solid bogey on the 8th hole, a longer par 5 that even after driver/hybrid I’m usually 150 out. The hybrid just slid into the rough into a crap lie, so that was a solid bogey in the end. So I came up to the 9th 2 over playing easily the best I ever have in league…and proceed to pump my tee shot off the planet and double my last hole. Still a 40 is my best league round in 3 years so I’ll take it, but getting your worst score on the last hole sours it just a little
Morning round today was a good example of the basic stats not telling the whole story of a round.
Score: 79 (meh)
Fairways: 77% (great)
Greens: 72% (good)
Putts: 40 (oof)
Here’s the thing though, the actual putting wasn’t awful, it was my proximity. Out of all those greens, really only 2 were decent looks at birdies (which I missed) and a bunch were going to be struggles for two-putts.
Definitely my fault and not the equipment, but I will say I was driving the ball fantastic (AutoFlex driver shaft) even with my legs being dead by the end of the round. I oddly kept hitting it to perfect gap wedge distances….and my gap wedge is on order from Cleveland. The 3/4 PWs were mixed at best, hence the poor proximity.
Bittersweet Golf Club
Played my nemesis course. I don’t recall scoring better than I did today. This is saying alot considering I am an 8 and shot 84.
For something different I really strategized out my round ahead of time. That means I hit slot of 3-irons. I usually score bad because of lost balls with the driver.
Good news that wasn’t the problem. Speed of the greens in the longer puts was. 39 puts and an 84. I’m not unhappy. Good news is that the work I have been doing dialing in the wedges is working. I felt very good with the distances inside of 100 yards. I couldn’t make the putts, but at some point I will.
Beautiful morning.
On Friday I played 49 holes of golf at Lawsonia in Wisconsin. Played the morning 18 on the world class Links course. After starting +4 thru 6 I steadied the ship and finished with a good 77, including birdies on 11 and 12!
Then in the afternoon I played the newly renovated Woodlands course. I started off hitting the first 7 greens, going -1, then bogeyed 8 and parred 9 for a front 9, 36. After a solid par at 10, I eagled the par 5 11th, holing a 50 yard pitch shot to go to -2 for the round. I parred 12-15. I was calm, but we had a long wait on 16 tee. When it was time to hit, I set up and was just starting my take away when a cart drove up. I blew it way right and had to scramble for bogey. That stuff doesn’t usually bother me so I’m not sure why I heard the cart pull up. Anyway, then I parred 17 and hit what I thought was 3 good shots to the par 5 18th. But I must have been amped up on my 3rd because I was just long in really thick grass, above the hole on the severely sloping green. I hit a decent chip to about 12 feet, but with the slope, the putt was going to be moving almost perpendicular to the line at the cup. I just missed to shoot even par 72. 
This is the 2nd time recently that I’ve had a chance to go under par away from my home course and bogeyed 2 of the last 3 to shoot even. Need to get into that situation more.
We drove back up to the clubhouse house and saw the first tee on the Links was wide open. So off we went! I wasn’t taking it too seriously, and was trying unique shots from different places. But I did have a nice run from 8-11, making two birdies and then an eagle on 11! We got 13 more holes in before dark.
The 2/3 (or 3/4) rule strikes again for me:
weekend round 1 - +3 Driving handicap 14 (gross), putting handicap +1
weekend round 2 - -1 Driving handicap +1, putting handicap 7
at least irons were good all around (until next time)!
It was hotter than the sun. Fresh off some good rounds, my confidence was high. Unfortunately, the law of averages balanced things out yesterday. My driver was uncharacteristically bad. Significant hook was present on many of my iron shots. When I tried to play the hook, I push sliced the shot instead.
Putting and chipping were excellent. Recovery shots were good. Decision making good. Attitude excellent.
I choose to believe the intense heat and humidity caused 20 extra strokes. Nothing any of you can say will convince me otherwise.
Intense heat you say?
Last regular season night of league yesterday, played a super steady round for not having my best ball striking game. The work I’ve put into my short game and putting was carrying me, only had 14 putts on the night. Once again, doubled the last hole to sour an otherwise consistent round. But the rough was gnarly and punishing if you were in it.
Overall happy with the state of my game, minus my lack of distance covered in a different thread. Ramping up my long game is the goal for the remainder of the year.
Played 9 last night in league and the course was in decent shape despite ~ 9" of rain. The rough was insane and the greens were slow, but almost no mud.
My swing sucked after a week without play or practice, but scrambled to a respectable 42 and eked out a win. The putter was also frustrating as I had 5 lipouts attempting to save par. I blame the slow greens as I hit my line, but just never got the speed quite right.
Played 2 balls side by side today. My good shots were really good but my bad shots were terrible. Between my 2 balls I had 9 pars and 2 birdies but my bad holes were 4 triples and 3 quads. My first birdie was so lucky. Aimed down the right side alongside a concrete dam(because left is ob) expecting a straight to slight pull shot and hit a fade into the lake. It hit the far side and bounced off the concrete wall back onto the fairway. I hit a good 9i that went past the pin and up a tier. Then I hit a putt that only just got over the tier and dribbled down the slope and fell in the side of the hole for a lucky birdie. On the 4th I had a chip lip out and I hit lots of good shots getting 8 gir. The first ball hitting 5 and the second 3. Missed 2 shortish putts having three 3 puts. Still enough good shots to bring me back.
Did you punch in sg putting?
Still seems like the 40 putts tells a story….
In two rounds? Yikes, you have got to find a way to tighten that up.
My game is definitely starting to coalesce… 80 from the back tees and 79 today, and my handicap is down from a 7 to a 5.5
Still lots of things to tighten up… I’m not making a huge amount of putts (I was negative strokes gained both day, 2.12 today with one boneheaded three putt) but I’m also not putting a ton of shot close enough… Just need to tighten everything up a bit and I think I can comfortably get down to a 3 handicap this season…
Still plenty of dumb mistakes on my part! Lots to clean up. Both rounds featured silly doubles that could have been avoided… my round today had a number of mental mistakes… but I’m really like the direction I’m trending it!
Played again today. Parred 4 of the first 6 holes then bogies or doubles for the rest of the round. At least no triples or quads.
Today it was -
Score: 76 (good)
Fairways: 70%
Greens: 50%
Putts: 30
On the surface it looks like all the improvement was with the putter, but I didn’t really putt all that much better today. I was slightly more off on my approaches, though (hence the lower GIR). This meant chips and closer putts. Made a couple birdies instead of missing them and that really was the only difference.
You don’t think you putted much better?
Not particularly. Two birdie putts drop today that didn’t on the last round. The biggest difference is that my first putt proximity today was probably under 10’ on average instead of over 20’ like it was the previous round.
I am being a bit nitty but 40 putts from an avg. first putt of 20 ft is losing lots of strokes
Hit 5 balls OB in route to a 91 in the club championship qualifier…
I really need to sort out my driver.
Just for fun, I went ahead and plugged some numbers into a strokes gained calculator (I used this one, don’t know if it’s any good, just the first google result).
With a first putt proximity of 22 feet, an 8 handicapper has an expected putts of ~40.
With a first putt proximity of 9 feet, an 8 handicapper has an expected putts of ~32.
So I didn’t gain/lose any strokes on putting that first round, gained two strokes putting the second round. Arbitrary to say which two strokes, but I’ll chalk it up to the two made birdie putts.