Hole #14 was sad. I had a big tee shot that went up to hole #7’s fairway, but when Terry and I drove over to go find it, we never did. And then a group started to play #7, and another group came up behind us, so after an uncomfortably long amount of searching, I decided to give up.
...we saw John (last name) was in the group that was behind us. They all wondered why I was teeing off again, so we told them how we were confident we would find my first tee shot, but we couldn’t. Then we were all wondering if it was okay to call this second tee shot a provisional, and we had a discussion about the legality of it all. I was on the side of “no.” I thought a provisional could only be used after you tee off the first time and not after you have gone and looked for your ball, but have not been able to find it, and then go back and tee off the second time. It was at this point that John gave me the nice compliment. He said something like (I am paraphrasing), “Pat, if there is anyone out here I can trust completely, it would be you.”
Wow! I do my best. I want to do things right. My experiences playing in golf tournaments, however, have shown me that the rules are hardly ever followed (me included, but never intentionally). Writing about this right now reminds me of three rule infractions by other players that were never reported in tournaments I have played in the past. I could have reported them, but I am no tattle-tale, and honestly the tournaments (or rather the flights I have been in) are just not “big” enough. They are not major tournaments (no offense to the club championship I just played in). I can only think of one infraction where a player ended up winning and probably should not have, but I didn’t speak up so where is the problem really?
I was writing about hole #14 a bit ago. Sorry for the “rules” distraction. I ended up getting a 7 after it was done. I almost lost my ball a second time, but Terry found it for me. I still owe him $5.00 for a finder’s fee. Not really, but I did jokingly tell him I would pay him. I pulled my approach after my second tee shot. My ball found its way to the tall gnarly grasses that line the left side of that hole before the green. Thank you, Terry! It could have been worse.
I finished in a mediocre way. I went par, par, double, bogey for my last four holes. I ended up with four pars, one birdie, and some "other" scores for my 41. I wish I had played the front nine better on both days, but it wasn’t meant to be.
I did do something different to help me gauge my mental game this time. I wrote the acronym p.a.r. on the side of my score card for each nine holes. It stood for present (did I stay in the present?), accept (did I accept the results of each shot?), and routine (did I follow my routine on each shot, restarting if I needed to?). If I failed in any of those areas, I would mark it on my card for that hole. On day one, I marked the letter a on three holes: #1, #4, and #7. I got an 8 on the par five #7, so it did affect my score on that hole. On the other two, I got bogeys. I did not mark any holes on the back nine on Saturday, and that makes sense since it was my best score of the weekend.
On day two, I marked an a on hole #1 and on hole #17. I got a double on #17, and I remember the shot I did not accept. It was my fourth shot. I was just off the green and all I needed to do was get it on the green with a chip shot from above the hole. I had another ugly contact that sent my ball nowhere, and I was not happy about it. In my defense, though, I got it on the green right after that, and I did not quit and walk off the golf course claiming, “I’m done.”
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