Saturday, 13/10/2007 – Stroke

On a cold and overcast day that would clear about half way around, we hit off from the bricks in a stroke round where the main purpose of the day was to find our Club’s 2007 “Medalist of Medalist’s”

Not having won a Medal this year, or any of the daily awards (NTP’s or Long Drives) that are on offer on any of the Medal Days during the year, I was one of about half the club who had no interest in the round other than the golf itself.

Started poorly by blocking my opening tee shot well right into the trees, thankfully just short of the Dam. My effort to recover to the fairway hit another tree. Finally back out to the fairway about 60m away with my 3rd and found the green about 20 feet from the pin with my 4th. The resulting 3 putt gave me an opening triple bogey 7 and the steam coming from my ears would have set any kettle whistling……

The rest of my roller coaster front 9 went like this……

A 1 putt par 4 on the 2nd, followed by a 3 putt bogey 6 on the 3rd, a 2 putt par 3 on the 4th, a 3 putt double bogey 6 on the 5th, a 2 putt par 4 on the 6th, a 3 putt double bogey 7 on the 7th, a 1 putt par 3 on the 8th and a 2 putt par 4 on the 9th.

An 8 over par 44 the front side, with 5 Pars and 4 3 putt greens. Interesting front half really.

SHOULD have been much better…

Back 9 started bogey, par, bogey, par and I arrived at the 14th tee thinking I might be able to pull something special out of where the sun doesn’t shine….

For some reason after I’d pulled 3W for safety off the tee on 14, I decided to put it back and grab the big dog… BIG MISTAKE…… Blocked my tee shot short and right into the trees and what followed can only be described as Shakespearean Farce at its best. With my ball sitting reasonably well but my forward progress blocked by a lovely 100 year old gum tree, I thought I’d manage a deliberate fade around the monster, maybe find the green for 3 and at worst 2 putt for another bogey 5.

Suffice to say, the reality in no way matched the vision…….

Remembering that OOB runs all the way down the left hand side of this hole, I still settled on the big fade. Settled over the shot, pulled the trigger and my ball flew rifle straight, didn’t bend right an inch and OOB she went!!! Again the steam starts from the ears and after dropping a second ball, I promptly repeated the shot and got the EXACT same result…!!! Now I was REALLY angry…!!! Dropping a 3rd ball, I just bunted it out into the fairway with my 1 iron. Walked to it, and bunted it again towards the green, and repeated that process (with the 1 iron the whole time) until such time as the ball was in the hole. Once on the green, I 2 putted (again with the 1 iron) and once the “mist had cleared” I counted them up and told my marker he’d best put me down for an 11...!!!

The remaining 4 holes came and went with me pretty much not giving a flying about what had happened previously and very much to my surprise, somehow I managed to finish par, par, bogey, par…

So, the wash up was 90 off the stick, net 75. 18 over the card for the 18 holes, 10 of those shots on 2 holes… So, that’s 8 over the card for the other 16… Not bad for a 15 marker.

Man, do I need to sort out my BLOW OUT holes…

Anyways……

As always
Thanks for reading.

Cheers