Written on 9-5-17.
It’s nearly sunset as I sit out on Sanctuary, our big deck on the east side of our home. The sky today has been hazy, like there’s a forest fire, but it’s hundreds of miles away and mostly contained. I don’t really know if there is a forest fire, but that’s what makes the most sense to me. Today, while playing golf with C.J., it seemed like we were playing at a course near an ocean or a large lake due to all of the haziness. It looked like extra humidity.
Belinda is helping her mother wash windows, so I’m all alone. I’ve got my new Sony speaker, the one I bought for trainings, playing music from Pandora. I wanted one that could fill a large library with sound just in case the speakers at whatever school I was at were not working. It’s my Plan B speaker, and it sounds great.
It’s time for a scorecard review. I played today and yesterday, and I’ve got one other round from four days ago, too. I have no work this week, and I really want to take advantage of my membership, so the goal is to play every day this week, except Friday when Belinda and I go to Albuquerque for my CORE staff meeting on Saturday morning.
I’ll start with four days ago and work my way up to today. Bruce, C.J., and I were reunited for a round at Hidden Valley. I suggested Stableford, and...
they agreed. It had been a long time since we had played that one, and it was a wonderful choice. Eagles were worth 10, birdies 5, pars 3, and bogeys 1. Anything worse than a bogey was…worthless. We went off the back for our first nine, and we all got bogeys right off the bat, even though I was the only one to hit the green. I got a par on the next hole after driving my ball to the top of the hill on the left side this time. I was ahead at that point. Then I lost two balls on #12. Bummer.
C.J. earned a net birdie on #13, so he took the lead. Bruce had a slow start, earning just four points in the first six holes. He got his first par on #16, but C.J. earned a true birdie on the same hole, so he kept his lead going. I finished with two pars, but Bruce got his first birdie on #18, so it was really close after nine holes. Bruce and I were tied with 15 points, and C.J. was right there with 14.
Belinda just got back, and she had her first pay stub in her hands for her new job as a reading interventionist at Park Ave. After she opened it and saw what she had made, we high-fived each other. She is getting paid for a job she enjoys, and she met her goal of sitting out a year and then coming back to double-dip. After our little celebration, she said I was facing the wrong way. While I was watching the sun set, the moon had crept up behind me. Now, I have turned around, and I am looking at the moon, and it looks like a tarnished gold coin in the sky. Gorgeous.
Back to golf. On the front nine, which was our back nine, it continued to be a close match. I slowed down considerably, Bruce had a slow start again, but C.J. really turned it on. When we reached the last hole, it was anybody’s game. Bruce really should have had the lead, but he had a few unforced errors on the green on #7. After missing his putt for birdie, he overdid his par putt, so it lipped out. Then he backhanded his bogey putt, and he missed that one, too. C.J. gave it to him, but it was only one point at that…um…point. Bruce should have earned a par to get his three points, but he didn’t. So, the scores on our second to last hole were Pat 27, Bruce 27, and C.J. 28.
I figured I would have to par in on the last three holes to have a chance, and I was right. I blew it on this last hole, though, not even getting off the tee box like I should have. Bruce ended up with a bogey, so he got one point. C.J., however, earned a bogey, and with his pop on the last hole, won the match with a par, earning 31 points in all.
He really earned it, too, because he was way over on hole #9, and behind some trees, too, after his third shot, and I was trying to do the math if he was going to get a par, a bogey, or no points, and the same with Bruce. Then he pitched his ball right onto the green and just below the hole, so it was moot, and it was over. Great job, C.J. You really earned this one, beating the two “younger guys” this round.
I played yesterday all by myself, and it was fairly miserable. I found out that I have a temper, and that despite being known as being an extremely patient person, I can have no patience at all, especially when it comes to losing golf balls. What made no sense was that I had plenty of sleep the night before this round. With as much sleep as I had gotten, nothing should have bothered me, but that was not the case…on some of the holes. Some were excellent. I’m in a bit of a birdie drought right now, but I have earned some excellent pars.
Here is the bad and the ugly. On hole #4, the downhill par three, I pulled my tee shot way left. I figured I would find it, but I did not. I believe it ended up in the “swamp” just left of the cart path that is about the size of a small bedroom that Randy and the guys who work the course have allowed to grow and grow. On the very next hole, I lost another one that I thought ended up inbounds, but no luck. That was my fourth shot, though. Ugh!
When I played the front nine a second time, it didn’t get any better. On #1, my tee shot ended up under the bush that is to the right of the cottonwood, so I took an unplayable lie and a drop. I swung my pitching wedge from there, and my ball disappeared again! It should have been up on the hill that is left and short of the green (I saw it go up there), but it either became invisible or chose to play hide and seek; either way, I never found it. With a group coming up behind me, I chose to just walk to the next hole.
When I played hole #6 the second time, I clanked my tee shot into a bush, hacked it out to a spot that was still in the rough, and then knocked my ball down by the fence and nearly out of bounds. I backhanded it away from the fence, which was cool, but I ended up with an 8…on a par three. Yuck!
On hole #8, with that group coming up to the green on #7, I hurried my tee shot, and I have no idea what happened. I never saw it, but I was too embarrassed to hit again, so I just walked up the fairway. I dropped up on the hill on #7 and finished from there, but that was definitely not a legal score. Exhausted from all of the ups and downs of the day, I managed a spectacular tee shot up the left side on the last hole, only to never find that one either. Completely defeated, I just walked to my truck, putting two X’s in the final two spaces on my scorecard.
Here is the good. I managed six pars total, so I was even for 1/3 of my round. That’s being overly optimistic, isn’t it? I nearly birdied hole #8 and #9 on my first nine holes. They were both tap-in pars. The best part, for sure, was my best ball score from my two nine hole rounds. The holes I played really well on the first go-around, combined with the holes I played really well on the second go-around, came out to a score of 39, just plus four. It was ironic that I played holes #4, #5, and #7 better on my second nine, and those were the holes I played lousily on my first nine. This is great for visualization, because I could just play those holes over in my mind (the good ones, of course) and completely blank out the bad ones for a complete front nine of success.
That’s enough for tonight. It’s almost 9:40, and B and I are in bed for the night. Next time, I will write about today’s round with C.J., and how we did with the greens in regulation game.
Until next time…
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