7-9-10
Chris asked me to be a part of his foursome the day after the 4th of July when I had played alone. I wrote a tidbit about that earlier (in my journal, but not in this blog), but it was very nice of him to ask me. C.J. showed up when we were about to head over to the tee box on #1, and I had a slight awkward moment when Bruce also pulled up in his jeep, or maybe Bruce had the awkward moment, I don’t know, but I don’t want to speak for him. He apologized for not calling me to ask me to play that morning, but I obviously couldn’t play with him since I was riding in a cart about ready to go play with another group. I felt like I was "cheating," and he felt bad for not calling. It was a tad awkward.
Although we haven’t ever talked about it, I think Bruce and I have an unspoken deal, and that is he doesn’t need to call me to go play with him because I really only call him before I play. I am pretty sure he and C.J. play more often than I do, and they don’t call me every time because they figure I am busy doing something else, and, most of the time, that's true.
So, I stopped to say hello, and he got out of his jeep and apologized for not calling. I told him that I called him the day before to see if he would play with me, but he told me he didn’t get the message.
I had a bad start. When I was on hole #1, I thought about “escaping” and playing with Bruce and C.J. when they were over on hole #5. They skipped over to hole #4 to start their round. Everyone had a decent tee shot in our group except me. I ended up getting an eight on hole #1, a much easier hole now that it’s a par five. If I had played with Bruce and C.J., I would have taken a second shot off the tee because that’s what we do since we have no driving range at Hidden Valley. It was just strange playing with other guys. It was strange playing in a cart, too. I had a miserable front nine. I shot a 51.
Another thing that this group did differently was that they allowed “gimmes”. This didn’t bother me as far as my game was concerned. If they offered to let me pick up, I would just go ahead and putt out anyway, and I realize this was not a tournament, and that we were just playing for fun, but it bothered me more after the round when I looked back on what happened with Tim, Chris’s brother. On some holes, like hole #5 where he hit two out of bounds, he would stop playing. It happened on hole #14 and hole #18, too. If he fluffed a chip, or maybe even two in a row, he would quit the hole. A few expletives escaped his mouth from time to time whenever something like that would go wrong, and quite a few of those began with the letter –f.
This is my opinion, and it’s really none of my business, but I think it would do wonders for Tim’s game if he would finish every hole he played no matter how high the score. It wasn’t like we were holding up a group behind us on the back nine. We had passed a group that was pretty slow when we made the turn. Just the process of finishing a hole from tee to green is an extremely satisfying experience. When I have a terrible hole, I want to finish it. I want to see how bad it really is. If I were to not finish a hole just because I hit two out of bounds, for example, I would not have a really good sense of where my game is at (and that has happened more times than I want to recount here), and I would feel a little bit like I cheated somehow, like I would not let the hole get the best of me when quitting on a hole is really the simplest way to have the golf course tell you, “You lose. I win.”
In Tim’s defense, he has a very powerful swing. He could really swing his club, and he could really hit it far. He easily out drove all of us on hole #14.
One more comment about the gimmes. On the day I played by myself, I was less than ten feet from the hole on hole #5, and I only needed two putts for my par. I put my first putt about two feet past the hole. I am betting that these guys would have said, “Go ahead and pick it up.” if they didn’t already know that I do like to putt out every time. Well, I missed that second putt and I earned a bogey instead. I was extremely frustrated that I did not make it, but I missed it. No going back now, and I could not write down a five, even though I was playing alone, and even though I really wanted to. Those little putts are important. I remember a similar story from a Bob Rotella book. A young boy had put his tee shot on a par three within a foot or so. His parents congratulated him on his first birdie, but they didn’t allow him to finish. I think one of them picked up his ball, or told him, “That’s good.”
Dr. Bob told them that he had not, in fact, earned his first birdie after all, and I agree. Finish the hole! Put the ball in there! Get ‘er done!
I was proud of my ethical behavior when I played alone on hole #8, too. I was about to putt a three-footer when I noticed a small piece of grass on the sweet spot of my putter. When I picked up my putter, I twisted it to wipe that piece of grass off, and I accidentally bumped my ball. I couldn’t believe it. I was playing alone against the Bogey Man ( a game I have made up on my own for when I play alone), and I could have written down a bogey instead of a six, but I couldn’t do it. I debated with myself. I even said that if I ended up making the putt, I’d write down a five, but I couldn’t when I was done. I thought if I couldn’t be honest now, when playing alone, then when? I lost two strokes on those two holes for careless mistakes, but those were the scores I had really earned. I ended up losing to the Bogey Man by two strokes since I had set a goal to give the Bogey Man no more than five strokes for nine holes. I gave him six. Those two strokes cost me the victory, but at least I had a clear conscience.
We had a funny moment on the tee box. I mentioned I had my new head covers: my Yoda (3-wood) and my Chewbacca (driver). Chris asked me why I didn’t have the Darth Vader one, and I told them all that I didn’t like that one because it looked cheesy. I was being serious. I like the fluffy ones, but the Darth Vader one is supposed to be sharp, cold, and metallic. It looked silly to me. I don’t think Darth Vader works as a head cover. Of course, they were all laughing at me because they think they all look cheesy. We all got a good laugh out of that one. For me, though, it’s just like when I drove a station wagon in college. It takes a confident man to do that. Well, it takes a confident man to have a Yoda and a Chewbacca head cover, too.
I had a bad front nine, one of the worst I’ve had in months. It was probably the worst nine holes I’ve played this season. It wasn’t all bad, though. I did have back-to-back pars on holes #5 and #6, but that was about it.
When we started the back nine, I seemed to settle in and play better. I decided that I would add only my back nine score, and that the front nine was for working out the kinks. I figured my back nine score would be combined with the 43 I had shot the day before. Thinking about that helped me to play even better. In my mind, I threw out the front nine.
I almost drove #10, got on the green with a short pitch, and used only two putts for a good start. Then I got a par on hole #12, which felt more like a birdie to me; it always does. I hit the green, but it rolled off just slightly on the left side (about an inch off the green). I got in with only two putts from there. The hole was on the back. That set the tone for the rest of the holes. Getting a par there gave me a boost, and I carried that for the rest of the round. I ended up with five pars (holes #10, #12, #14, #16, and #18, wow! all the even holes!) and four bogeys (all the odd holes, how odd!). The par on #18 was pretty special. My drive ended up in the bunker on the left side about 170 yards out. I used my 7-iron, clipped it smartly and ended up on the green in regulation, but not on the correct side. My first putt went up and over the ridge to the left side, and I ended with a par by making my three-foot finishing putt.
I am going to purposely digress here, but I made another par on this hole when Bruce and I played together. He putted first from off the green and his putt gave me a great read. My putt was about fifteen feet away and downhill. I knew from his putt to put mine farther to the left and to be more gentle with it. It broke about three feet from left to right and went in the hole, so I have earned par on #18 twice this season. Those feel like birdies, too! That’s a tough hole!
When we got to hole #13, Chris told me that he had been watching the Ten Free Video Lessons from a guy named Trahan online. He said I should check them out. Chris’s swing did look better. It looked more upright than in the past, and it also seemed to be more powerful. His chipping and putting were not that great, he fully admitted, but his full swing looked nice. He said he was keeping what Gary (last name) had taught him, but these videos were helping him by adding some new features.
Sadly, Chris did not do well in the San Juan Open this year, though. He shot in the triple digits all three days, a very atypical tournament for him. Usually, he has only one bad day, or one bad set of nine holes. At the beginning of this season, he said he would not play in it and instead use his money for the seasonal membership at Hidden Valley, but somehow he got a sponsor to allow him to play again. Great for him! Writing this makes me realize I didn’t go watch the San Juan Open this year. I usually do, but this year I didn’t make it.
When we were all done playing, and I was back at home, I did check the website out. I remember seeing the advertisement for them on my own blog here, so when I saw it pop up again, I clicked on the link to find out a little bit more about the videos.
I had to enter my name and my e-mail, though, so I chose not to do it. I also chose not to do it, though, because I feel like I am playing well right now. Why mess with a good thing? I know Chris is figuring out this newer swing style, but his scores are not where mine are right now. He needs to figure out how to score well with the adjustments he is making.
When we were all done, I had one of the best nine hole scores of my life, just two strokes off of my best nine hole scores ever, and I had the lowest score of the group, the next closest being seven strokes away. I shot a 39, just 4 over. Poor Tim went off to Chris’s jeep, and as I was putting stuff away in my bag, we all heard another expletive. We weren’t sure what it was at first, but then we realized it had started with the letter –f, so we figured it out. Chris asked us all to wish him luck for the ride home. We did.
For playing so well, I’d like to thank Yoda and Chewbacca. Maybe after my fellow players had laughed at my cheesiness, they thought better of it, and had decided to “let the wookiee win.”
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