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| Dad and I on Hole #9-The Ridge at Pole Creek Golf Course |
I was right on both counts. It was precious time together, a time that I will never forget and always cherish, and shooting a low score on the new course was difficult.
I shot a 46 on the front, which is average for me now, but not too bad. Then I did even worse on the back nine, shooting a 49. Par was 36 for each nine. It was not my full swing that was the problem, though. For the first time I can remember since I started playing, it was my putting. I triple-putted way too often. The greens, despite practicing on them for a few minutes before the round, were… confusing. I started by not making a big enough swing, leaving my ball short of the holes. Then I switched to taking too big of a swing (as the greens were getting faster due to the warmer temperature), putting my ball too far past the holes. I did make some great putts, though.
Guy did not play well, but who cares. I know he didn’t care too much, and it was the time together alone with Dad and me that really counted anyway. Because I play more often than he does, because he uses rental clubs, and maybe because he was more travel-weary than I was (they were on vacation in North Carolina only two weeks ago), I gave him one stroke per hole.
It was barely enough. I ended up beating him by a net three strokes. I thought he would play better. I thought I would shoot in the mid to high eighties, and he would shoot right at around 100, but I shot a 95, and he shot a 116.
His first two shots were indicators of what his entire round would be like, a struggle. He put his first ball into a great bushy expanse that was thirty or so yards ahead of the teeing ground. He teed it up again only to do the same thing, just a bit farther than his first shot. Since we were playing with a couple, Bob and Betty, he chose to just drop up on the fairway to keep things moving.
Bob and Betty played on ahead without us on hole #2, though, because Betty said she had a meeting to get to later in the day, so we were relieved and grateful to be alone. I told Guy that we would not take any score that went past double par, and he did not get another double par for the rest of the round that he did not at least earn on his own.
We played two of the three nine hole courses. We played The Meadows first, and then we finished up on The Ridge. The Ranch was the course we did not play, and that was the part of the course nearest the house Guy rented, so we were not able to play the holes that we drove by every day going out and coming back again. I want to go back and play The Ranch some day. If we had no obligations, if school were not about to start for us in a week, if James didn’t have a student council meeting today, if we had an unlimited amount of money, if B didn’t care, I’d probably be playing it right now with Guy. I would not be sitting in the back seat of our van, heading home and writing on our laptop here.
The greens were immaculate. I want to go play again just to have a better showing with my putter. They were spongy, light green, and gorgeous. No offense to Hidden Valley, but these greens were better, much better. Dad commented numerous times on the condition of this course. It was obvious that attention to details was placed as a high priority.
8-5-10
Workers were pulling weeds and tall grasses by hand on several of the greenside bunkers as we were playing, flowerbeds were tended to, and everything was “in order.” I want to go back. I daydreamed I owned one of the beautiful cabin homes that hid just off one of the fairways on many holes, but one really stands out in my mind, a dark brown beauty with thick logs and a green roof on hole #3 on The Ridge. I would like one home in Sedona and one in Grand Lake. I’d play in Sedona during the winter (although Sedona can have miserable winter weather sometimes), and I’d play in Grand Lake in the summertime. Dreaming is fun.
Looking at my scorecard, I noticed I had four triple-putts on the front nine. If those were double-putts, I would have scored a 42. Dang it! On the back, I had two triple-putts, and I lost a ball on the par five #6, ending up with an eight on that hole. If I had double-putted those two greens and found that ball, I might have scored a 45. Guy got an eight on that one too. For the most part, the one stroke I gave Guy per hole worked out exactly the way I predicted, and it was especially obvious on the back nine. On the back, he scored one stroke higher than I did on five of the holes. On the front, we tied three times, and he beat my score on one hole, hole #2. He earned a bogey when my putt for bogey lipped out to mock me on the same side it had just come from. If a hole could stick out its tongue at me, it was this hole.
I did have some good putts, though, and the first one that comes to mind was on the difficult par five #7. Guy and I really struggled on this hole, and after it was over, I immediately wanted to go back and try it again. My drive went longer and “righter” than I wanted it to, so I was in the rough past the fairway. My intention was to cut the corner over some trees, but I pushed it. I took a free drop due to an electric box over there. Then I pitched out poorly, leaving a downhill lie for my third shot. Going for the green was never an option from that point. It was well over 250 yards, uphill, and it had water hazards and more large bushy areas to contend with. I chose to lay-up again to a small oval section of land (a peninsula of sorts) that was just past the 150 marker, but I ended up in one of the grassy, bushy areas. I escaped, but my ball disappeared into another waste area/hazard beyond that lay-up area. I took a drop and made a nice swing with my pitching wedge that avoided a small tree that was in my way. I was on the green in six, but I still had fifteen feet of immaculate, bright, spongy, confusing green to contend with. I knew a 7 would be a great score considering what I had just gone through, a major small victory, especially since this was a hole where Guy earned one of his double par scores. I made it!
Another great putt came on the hole just before that one, the par three #6. I missed the green long and right. Guy was on the green short and left. He left his first putt short, but he made the next one, an eight-footer. Guy is a really good putter, especially considering he is playing with a new putter every time we play with/against each other. He sees the breaks, and he rolls the ball well. His four to five foot putts are deadly; he can hit the hole dead center. I pitched up onto the green, but the ball did not roll down to the hole the way I saw it in my mind. I had about a seven-foot downhill putt for par, and I made that one. That one felt really great since I had triple-putted three of the first five greens.
My favorite hole was the final hole. First of all, we stopped to take pictures. It’s a downhill par five, so the teeing ground is way up high and the view was, well what I picture in my head when I see a mountain golf course view, mountains all around and a nice view of fairways and greens farther below. Dad teased me by saying I might do better to set my ball on the edge and just roll it off. Dad got out of the cart to come over for pictures. Guy and I both took a couple of pictures each with Dad on Guy’s new iPhone, and then Dad took one of us. I teed off before Dad walked over, and it was so fun! It reminded me of the par five finishing hole at the course in South Fork; it was like teeing off into a green ocean. My ball flew high and far, and it headed toward the right side of the fairway. It went so far I could not see it land. After pictures, Guy teed off with a similarly fantastic result. His ball was straight and on the fairway, but I could not see it land either. I joked that we should both play a provisional just to smack another ball down there. We didn’t. Why didn’t we? We should have.
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| My Brother Guy (right) and I on Our Last Hole at Pole Creek |
I need to get up and work out. I have not eaten well lately with the traveling and the events. B and I are going to see Oklahoma tonight with Jess at Farmington’s outdoor theater. I need to call Bruce or C.J. to see when we will play again. I would really like to go play Hillcrest, but money is a real factor after our vacation, so it will probably be at Hidden Valley again. Better than no golf at all, though.
Until next time…
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