The First Birdie of 2018!

Written on 1-21-18.

     Belinda and I just got back from Sonic, a fast adventure with our new GMC Canyon into a wintry, windy, and icy Sunday afternoon.  Ironically, we got a bag of ice and an iced coffee for me.  I was hoping to get a hot coffee from Durango Joe’s, but they were closed.  

     Mostly, though, it was an excuse to get out of the house on a pretty nasty weather day.  Yesterday, it snowed for the first time here in a very long time.  We got a half-inch, and it has already melted off of our driveway, but hey, that’s better than nothing.  Up at the “cabin home,” they got six to eight inches, according to Amanda.  She and Eric went up there after a fun birthday dinner at Durango’s Mahogany Grille at the Strater.  Dale treated the twins to a fabulous dinner, and Anna, Eric, and I joined in on the food and the fun.  It was a fantastic, expensive, conversation-filled event. 

On to golf…

     I have one new birdie to report, and it is due to a fair weather day that we had on Friday, where the high was 55 degrees, but it felt more like it was in the 60's.  I texted my buddies, but they chose not to join me.  When I pulled into the parking lot, however, Randy pulled up right next to me.  He was trying to catch up to...

Roger and Mike, and they had just teed off on #1.  He asked me to join him, and I thought that was a great idea, so I did.  I didn’t know we were trying to catch up to those guys, though, until we reached #2.  We didn’t actually catch up to play with them until #7. 

     It was a fun round, so I decided to stay and play the full 18 holes with them.  We didn’t keep a serious score or play a game, and that was fine with me, but the competitor in me did notice that Roger was playing really well, and he did manage two birdies on the back, one on #10 and another on #18.  I got my birdie on the new #16.

Aztec Municipal Golf Course-New Hole #16-Birdie #1 of 2018             
     Hooray, I have my first birdie of the year.  I was all over the place on the front nine, so it was fun to get a birdie on the back.  I shot an ugly 45 on the front, and it included some shanks and some thinned shots.  It was the irons that weren’t working too well for me, but things improved after we made the turn.

     For this birdie, I took over the box after making a long putt for par on the new #14.  That included a conversation about mother-in-laws, which I’ll explain after this description.  I used my 7-iron to tee off, and it came off cleanly, no shank or thinned shot here.  My ball ended up farther than I wanted, so the left side of the cottonwood by the ditch obstructed my approach.  I chose my pitching wedge, hoping to clear the top of the left side of the tree, but instead it punched out low and flew under the branches.  I remember seeing the circular silhouette of my ball flying out from underneath a bunch of dirt and grass from my divot.  I walked up the hill ahead of the others, and I watched two of their approaches.  Roger and Mike ended up getting on the green, but Randy ended up in the first bunker.  I couldn’t find my ball at first, but that was because I needed to look past the green.  It was off the green on the back right side, and there was enough tall grass between my ball and the green to convince me to chip it instead of putt it.

     The hole was on the back right side, so it was fairly close.  I went out of turn and aimed well to the right of the flag, because the green sloped down to the ball from where I was standing.  Many Milk Duds (what Mike called rabbit droppings) dotted the greens, and I saw quite a few here, too, but it wasn’t worth clearing a path.  My chip popped my ball up onto the green, and then it settled down, rolled down the slope and to the left (avoiding all Milk Duds) and clanked the flagstick as it fell in.

     It’s later in the evening now, and B and I are in bed for the night.  I will continue this later, probably when I am in Abiquiu.  

Until next time…