A Dead Skunk Bogey

Written on 11-3-17.

     What a weird day.  I’m fasting, so I have a strange and nervous energy, and my mind goes from feeling hungry to feeling foggy to having clarity and then back to feeling hungry again.  Part of it has to do with looking at a computer screen too long, I bet.  This morning, I finished migrating all of the mailbox folders I had created in the Mail program before I began all the work on this MacBook Pro to get it to perform faster.  I was getting frequent and most unwelcome spinny rainbow circles of death when starting up my programs, so it had to be done.  This computer is crucial for all of the work I do.   

     What a chore, though!  Why have these back-ups if I make it so difficult on myself.  It would have been easier, of course, if I had not rebuilt the computer from scratch under a new username.  That was what was recommended.  As I now understand it, something was slowing everything down, but I have no idea even now what...

that was, so I had to start all over to eliminate it.  It worked (that’s the great news), but getting things back, especially those silly e-mail folders, took much longer than it should have.

     I now have a speedy Mac again, and everything is backed up on three different back-up discs.  I had only two before, but I bought a new one just to save all the work I had done to get it to go faster under the new username.  I plan on just leaving one of those with all of the old stuff on it and using the other two to continue to back up all the recent stuff.  It was a major project, but I feel confident that I am done and can move forward again.  

Back to golf…

     The last time our regular threesome played was October 23rd.  Wow, that was a long time ago.  C.J. and Bruce played without me two days ago, and C.J. played by himself yesterday.  C.J. reported that Bruce shot a 38, 36 for a 74.  I’m both happy and sad I missed out on that.  I’m happy, because he would have pasted me with that score, but I’m sad I didn’t get to witness it.            

     I haven’t been playing for good reason.  We were gone for the weekend Theresa died, of course, and I had three days of work in a row last week, too.  We took this past Sunday to go for a hike near Navajo Dam, and we checked out the new marina while we were there.  This week, I’ve been working hard on this laptop project, and we’ve been sanding and repainting all of the baseboards before the new flooring comes in, too.

     Hey, I wanted to write about golf, not life.  I got distracted there, but I wanted to understand why I haven’t been playing.  Bruce chose the Reverse Handicap Game, and it was an excellent choice.  I jokingly told him near the end of our round that he should get an extra point for choosing such a fun game.  Here’s how it went down…

Hole #1-I got the first points to jump out to an early lead.  My pitch from the valley just before the green bounced off the hill on the left side, kicked out onto the green, and rolled down the ridge in the middle to settle close to the hole.  I got 16 points.

Hole #2-C.J. won 12 points with a par.  Bruce was getting skunked, but it was still early.

Hole #3-C.J. and I pushed the points with pars.

Hole #4-We all pushed these points with bogeys.

Hole #5-Bruce and I tied with pars, so the point total being pushed got higher and higher.  28 points were pushed to the next hole.

Hole #6-The dam burst when C.J. earned a simple par with a handy chip and a putt.  Bruce got what we called a “dead skunk bogey,” too.  I even took a picture.  His second shot settled next to the dead carcass of a small skunk.  When he took his stance, his left foot was right next to it.  From there, he made an amazing shot out of the dirt to get up and down for his bogey.  I joked that he could not say that he wasn’t skunked now.  He was, however, still skunked when it came to points after this hole.  With this hole’s points, C.J. jumped way ahead with 38 more points; he now had 50 total.

Hole #7-Bruce and I tied with pars.  The green was really fuzzy, so we gave each other two putts after getting on the green, but I really did use only two points while Bruce ended up taking three, but that was fair, for sure.

Hole #8-I earned a birdie! C.J. did, too, though, so the points pushed to #9.

Aztec Municipal Golf Course-New Hole #8-Birdie #24 of 2017

     My drive was going along so well…until it hit a tree on the left side.  It had a great chance to go into the alley and spill out onto the fairway way out there, but it was denied.  Stunned, my ball got knocked back 50 yards to come to rest on the fairway.  It could have been worse.

     From this greater distance, I chose my utility club to send my ball back on track.  This was a fun shot, and my ball flew up the fairway and headed over the hill.  It looked like it might end up on the green, but it ended up short by about 15 yards.  I used my sand wedge to pitch my ball onto the green, and it worked, but it had a bit too much speed going into the bowl in order to get it to stop close to the hole.  It ended up stopping right on the edge of the green.  Bruce’s and C.J.’s ball marks made a three-foot gateway to the hole, so I aimed my putt right in between them, and it worked; my ball rolled right into the hole.  That put some pressure on their putts, but C.J. made his two-footer for his birdie without incident.

Hole #9-We all got bogeys and pushed the points once more.

Hole #10-C.J. won with another par, but he really earned it.  I had the advantage.  I was on the green, but my first putt rolled way past the hole.  C.J. pitched his ball close after coming up short on his tee shot.  He earned 37 points this time, and we were trying to figure out in our heads if enough points were available out there to even catch him at this…um…err…point.

Hole #11-Bruce and I pushed the points with a par.

Hole #12-Despite having the “dead skunk bogey” earlier, Bruce did not get skunked today.  He made a nifty birdie with an approach to less than two feet on this hole.  He earned eight points with this hole and the previous one.  Not very many points, but no skunk!

Hole #13-Bruce continued to prove that he was not stinky by winning this hole with a par.  He earned 11 more points to take the lead for second place.

Hole #14-Bruce and I got bogeys to push the points.  C.J. was struggling with some higher scores after winning Hole #10.

Hole #15-Bruce earned a birdie, so I was thinking I was going to end up in last place, but C.J. went on a great adventure that ended with a par, and he gets a pop on this hole, so he earned a net birdie.  

     It was an amazing par!  His tee shot ended up on the hill near the water, and I watched him take his second swing from there, a real go-for-it kind of swing.  After that, he somehow managed to get his ball just off the green near the farthest bunker, and he made a really long putt for his par.  Wow!  I’m glad he did that, because it pushed the points to the next hole.

Hole #16-I am not proud of it, but I won this hole.  This was a “this game is not a game of how, but how many” type of hole for me.  My tee shot was fine, and I was in fantastic shape for my approach.  It was the approach that was embarrassing, but hey, that’s golf, right?  I skulled my approach, and it skimmed out to the left over the ditch and the tall grass and the bunker and somehow stopped on the green.  I thought it would be past the green and down into the rough, but it was on the green.  I almost made my birdie, and I made sure to get my par.  I won 39 points on this hole, and that secured the win for second place.  Phew.

Hole #17-We all got pars, so we pushed the final points to the last hole.

Hole #18-C.J. won this hole with his final pop, so he got the final point.  We all thought this hole should be worth more, though.  With nine points from #17, he got ten more points.

     The final scores were C.J.: 97, Pat: 55, and Bruce: 19.  Those scores total to 171, and that is how many points are always available when we play this game.  

     Bruce should really get 20 points, though, because, like I wrote above, he deserves an extra point for coming up with the game.  It was a great one!  There.  I am all caught up.  I wrote about the laptop dilemma, my most recent birdie, and I figured out the Reverse Handicap math mystery.  Phew.  

Until next time…