The rest of the round stunk. I sometimes write words on my scorecards to help me remember what went wrong. I told Bruce those "bad" words I had written when we were walking along the fairway on hole #9, and it was a sad list. I wrote: ditch, lost!, ball moved, tree, tree again, and lip. I lost to both Bruce and C.J. again. This time, Bruce shot a 39, C.J. a 47, and me, a 48. At least the next round we played turned out better for me.
We did play holes #10 and #11 twice after that because it was getting dark, and I did do better than C.J. on those four holes, but I got a double on #11 both times, still not finding my swing, still not playing the way I am capable of playing. C.J. hit another one over the fence on #10, but this time no red tractor could save his ball. The three of us all earned par on hole #10 the first time, though, and Bruce had a putt for birdie for us to beat the Par Man, but he missed on that last hole. We lost to the Par Man (we had to at least get to one under) by one stroke, ending up even with our best ball score, the game that we had chosen to play that day.
On Sunday, we got to play a full eighteen holes. I changed the time on Bruce and C.J., but it worked out that they could still come play. I told them that since James and Danielle were going to CCD on Sunday nights, and since we were also going to church on Sunday evenings from now on, that I could play at 9:00 in the morning. Then I remembered that the children were excused from CCD if they helped at the church’s fiesta, so I called to change the time to our usual 1:00 time, and thankfully they could still play.
This round was marvelous, much better than the previous two nine-hole rounds. Despite two weak closing holes, I played some of my best golf of the season. So did Bruce. So did C.J. And that’s what helped to make it so fun. We all played well. Bruce and I matched scores for the first seven holes! It reminded me of the scoreboard in the movie The Greatest Game Ever Played. We both went 5, 3, 5, 3, 4, 5. Then I got a par to his birdie on #8, and when we got to hole #9, I knew a par would end a sweet nine holes, and I really thought I had it, too. I had a great tee shot. It was up there on the left side, and it was long enough to either lay up or go for it. I felt confident, so I went for it (I figured if it hit a tree, I would still be able to get it on the green with my next shot). I used the Wishon utility club, and I got my ball up in the air, heading over the trees, and heading right for the green. And then it hit the top of a tree and fell down. And then I hit a tree again (probably the same one) for my approach, and I ended up with a double.
C.J. just missed another goal that day that he had told us about earlier. He said he wanted to shoot a 39 or better for nine holes. Writing that reminds me of another goal of his that he did accomplish, though: He wanted to play the first three holes at even par. He did that on the same day he beat Bruce and me. All he needed was a par on #9 to shoot a 39 just like me, but he also got a double.
This is a total sidetrack here, but they just announced the Pick 3 winning numbers on KOBF, and I completely nailed it. I said 2, and it was a 2. Then I said 4, and it was a 4! My final guess was a 9, and it was a 9! I should have bought a ticket! Weird. I have guessed the numbers before, just for fun, and I have not even been close. Tonight, it was different.
I think this round typified the reasons we play. We want to have fun. We want to be competitive, and in order to do that, we want to play well. More than those two or three reasons, though, we want to push ourselves to play better than what we feel we are capable of playing. We want to push ourselves to a higher level of play. We did that on this round.
No comments:
Post a Comment