Sometimes It's Hard to Get a Par

     I made one more birdie on the last hole, and it was great to have Terry there to witness these.  He appeared impressed, especially with my approach on this hole.

Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #18-Birdie #6 of 2016

     This was one of those drives where I aimed for #3, but it faded and headed for #18 instead.  It didn’t make it to the fairway, though, instead nestling at the very end of the last fairway bunker on the left side.  This was the shot of the day, in my opinion.  With my 5-iron, I clipped the ball crisply out of the sand causing it to fly high in the air and land just short of the green and the flag that was on the front right side.  It didn’t take much to putt my ball onto the green and then finish up my less than two foot birdie putt.  We shook hands, commented on how wonderful it was to play together for the first time, and went our separate ways.  I doubt I will play with him again since he prefers Pinon Hills and Hillcrest, but it’s possible.

     My rough start really hurt my score, but my big takeaway will be that I can start with some lousy scores and still turn things around.

     I earned one more birdie yesterday after playing with Tink and C.J.  They left after the front nine, but I continued to play a full eighteen holes.  On the front, C.J. and Tink took me on in best ball match play.  I beat them handily 4 and 3, so we started over for the last three holes.  Tink played really well on the last three holes finishing par, bogey, par to help them beat me handily right back.  I had some out of bounds problems on both #7 and #8, and my drive was glorious again on #9, but we never found it.  This one sailed over all the trees that line #11’s fairway again, but it was a bit more to the left this time.  Instead of starting with some really poor golf on the first three holes this time, I ended with some ugly golf instead.

     After they left, I continued my ugly golf, but in my defense the wind was really whipping while I played the back.  I couldn’t score a single par, so I...

set that as my goal for the last six holes, to score a par or better.  I scored five bogeys, though, so it wasn’t until the end that I met my goal.

Aztec Municipal Golf Course-Hole #18-Birdie #7 of 2016

     This time, I aimed for #3, and I hit it.  It was a cool, low fade that ended up in a perfect position.  My ball was on #3’s fairway, and it was just far enough back to clear those three trees that are on the hill on #3, but can block the way to #18’s green if I come too close to them.  My 8-iron was weak.  I barely caught it, so it flew over those trees, but it landed well short of the green, thirty feet below the green.  The ground was so dry I chose to putt it from way down there, and it worked really well.  My ball rolled up the remainder of the hill, took a tiny jump off the ramp/fringe and rolled to a stop four feet below the hole where I could finish without an issue.