Written on 3-3-16.
I have a bit of time here before B and I head to Farmington to meet with an accountant. With our recent “rewiring,” consulting with an accountant on all of our changes seems not only appropriate, but necessary.
I have four new birdies, and I want to record them before I forget how they happened. I also had on excellent round (less three holes) where I had three of those birdies. I shot an 81, but it could have been much better. I’ll explain as I write.
I should have done it in reverse, but that’s not how I always work. Instead of work first, play later I chose to do the opposite. C.J. was out of town hiking the Grand Canyon with his buddy, Hart, who was testing out his new hip. Bruce texted me on Saturday morning, but since I had just walked 18 holes the day before, and I had plenty of planning left to do for my Santa Fe training, I declined. Bummer! I should have...
done all my work on Friday and played with my buddy on Saturday instead. Ah, hindsight; how cruel.
I started poorly. This was my first 18 hole round back at our Aztec Municipal this year, and I didn’t warm up much at all. A few stretches, a couple of swings, and I was off. It showed. I went single bogey, double bogey, triple bogey on the first three holes. Ouch! Then I straightened things out considerably. I earned one more score over par on #4 with another bogey, and then I woke up.
*We are back from the accountant. We went ahead and hired him to do our taxes. Driving away we were both relieved knowing an expert will be in charge, especially with all our changes from this past year. He came highly recommended by Eric, so I am confident we will be taken care of properly.
Anyway, I managed four pars in a row, including a long par putt on #6. Then I made another long putt on #7 to keep the momentum going. Love that new putter. I hit the green in regulation on #8. My goal was to score 20 points with the greens in regulation game. I would like to add that birdies should be worth three points the next time we play. It doesn’t seem right to hit the green in regulation, get a par, and have that be worth two points and then do the same thing but make a birdie putt and have that be worth just two points also. Just a thought.
When I came to #9, I made my first birdie of this first round of the year at Hidden Valley.
Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #9-Birdie #4 of 2016
Out of bounds is still no longer in play, so I took advantage. I spoke to Jason, the superintendent, about this later and he said it would stay that way unless too many people start to complain about it. I made sure he knew I was not complaining. I would not have earned this birdie if O.B. was in play. I drove it over all of the trees, a real boomer, and my ball ended up inside the 100 yard marker on the fairway on #11. It was to the right of the fairway bunker on that hole. I was only a pitching wedge away from #9’s green. The pin was on the front right side. My pitching wedge worked well to land my ball past the hole, so I had a 20 foot putt back to it. That eagle putt went by on the high side, and I was left with four feet for my returning birdie putt.
After a veggie sandwich from Ruby’s in the Valley, I headed out again. A lone player was making the turn in a golf cart, and it worked out for us to join up on the back nine. His name is Terry, and he is the owner of Treadworks, the tire store in Farmington. He was very pleasant company, and after we finished on #18 we both agreed that it would be great to meet up and play together once more someday. I didn’t tell him about my brother-in-law owning the Big-O in Aztec. That might have caused some friction, so I remained silent. Why cause friction?
I believe this was a first. I scored eight fours on the back nine and one six. I almost scored nine straight fours, but #17 caused me some frustration, and I got my only double there, which is a shame because I swung a sweet draw on my tee shot, but it ended up under a tree, so I had to backhand it out with my 7-iron to get it back into play again.
One of those fours came on the par five hole #14.
Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #14-Birdie #5 of 2016
My drive went well to the left, but it was long enough to fly over the trees and land pretty far ahead on hole #7’s fairway. Terry helped me find my ball, and it was just over the hill where I could see if anybody was teeing off on #7. Thankfully, nobody was. I used my 7-iron for my approach, and my ball landed just off the green on the top right side. The flag was up this time, and it was on the right side, too, so I putted my ball through a little bit of rough, which was actually smooth. My ball stopped past the hole three feet away, and I made that one for birdie #2 of this round.
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