Written on 8-14-19.
It’s a Wednesday evening, and it’s dusk. Hopefully, I won’t get a mosquito bite, because West Nile has been discovered in San Juan County. Yikes! I am watching my legs and arms between sentences.
Belinda and I are on sitting on our back deck, “Sanctuary,” and we are talking with Anna. We are making plans to go to the cabin tomorrow. It’s the year anniversary of the death of Dale this Friday, so we want to go do something to keep our minds off of it, or celebrate it, depending on our moods. Em is planning a surprise birthday party for James for Friday, too, so we need to be home in time for a FB video chat as part of that surprise. It will be a short trip, but we need this. It’s going to be a rough couple of days.
“Sanctuary” is even better now with the new deck cover, and the outdoor white “Christmasy” lights really add to this pleasing atmosphere. Steely Dan is singing Do It Again on Pandora, and I just let Misty and Kody out here to join this private summer party.
On to golf…
I played yesterday and today. I played with Shawn yesterday, and we decided to replay the GIR Game. He beat me this time, and the final score was 44 to 23. I played poorly on the back and never really challenged. He shot a 91 to my 94 this time. It was super hot again, and I was dragging by the time we made it to hole #16. Those last three holes take all of my mental and physical energy to finish respectfully. The game was close...
after the front nine. We were tied with 17 points each, but he ran away with it on the back, hitting multiple greens. Looking at the scorecard, I see that he hit seven greens, and I only hit one, and he hit five of his seven on the back nine. Good going, Shawn!
When we finished, he said, “I finally beat you.”
I had only beaten him the two times before, but he’s beaten me before that, too.
Today, I was planning to go to the range to work on my full swings, especially after my poor showing yesterday. The meeting to get the loan paperwork done for our new Alto, however, was moved from today to tomorrow morning, so I chose to play again instead of going to the range. I played all by myself, and because it was hot again, I was free to go at anytime. I teed off at around 2:00, and it was super fun to know my copies for this Saturday’s NES Math Workshop were being done at the copy center while I played. I was getting work down while I was playing golf. Nobody else was waiting to tee off, so off I went, and it was glorious…for seven holes.
On #1, I hit the fairway and the green, and I earned a par. On #2, I hit the middle of the fairway and the green, and I earned a second par. On #3, I completely missed the fairway to the left, but my 6-iron was just the right club to hit a third green in a row. Another par.
On #4, I missed the green to the left, and I got a stinking bogey. What a bummer after that amazing start.
On #5, I hit the fairway and the green, and I earned yet another par to get right back on track, though. On #6, the picturesque, signature par three, my ball was just right of the hole and only eight feet away. My birdie putt drifted an inch below the hole, though, so I got another par. On #7, I missed the fairway and the green, but I got up and down from the front of the green for a sixth par in seven holes.
After this dreamy start, I would have had 28 points guaranteed if we were playing that same GIR Game we’ve been playing recently, and it could have been even more if I had won any of those holes, too. Good grief. I had already earned more points in the first seven holes than I had for the entire round with Shawn yesterday.
Then golf was cruel again for one hole, incredibly cruel. This journal is for positive memories, but this is worth putting in here, because it was so bad it was comical. I wasn’t laughing when it was happening, however.
My tee shot faded over to a sidehill lie in one of the grass bunkers just off the fairway. Not too bad. My 5-iron yanked my ball all the way across the fairway, though, where it disappeared into the desert rough. That was bad. I dropped and told myself I was lying three. My fourth stroke went all the way across the fairway again (I meant to hit a draw, but it went straight), but I could see it in the taller grass over there. My next shot was blocked by some trees, however. I did my best to punch it from there under the trees that stood in between my ball and the green, but it shot out sideways and to the right and became stuck in a bush and barely findable, despite advancing less than four feet. Ugh. I took an unplayable lie. My approach wedge would have been plenty with a decent swing to clear the trees, but my ball caught a limb at the top and dropped directly behind the same tree. I pitched out to the fairway. I should have done that for my fourth stroke.
For my ninth stroke, my sand wedge had the perfect distance to make it to the top tier where the flag was, and as it flew I really thought it would be on the green and left of the flag, but golf can be a belligerent bully sometimes. My ball hit the side of the hill and caromed down to a grassy lie well below the green instead. My flop shot was actually skillful. My drive and that flop shot were the only two decent shots on this hole. That’s positive Patrick speaking, of course. After getting on the green in ten shots, I used up two putting strokes to earn a 12. Yes, a 12. In one hole, I had managed to stack up all the bogey strokes I had avoided from the seven holes before, plus the extra bogey stroke from missing the green on #4.
Golf is mean. It wasn’t fair. Life isn’t fair. Golf isn’t fair. Looking back, I am seeing a pattern and a lesson that I should be learning faster, but I’m not.
Here’s the lesson. When I end up in the rough, or if my full swing is hampered by a tough lie, don’t use my 5-iron to escape or advance the ball. A 9-iron or less will be fine. Three times now my 5-iron has sent my ball across a fairway and into the rough. Why? I really just need to get my ball back onto the grass again. Take my lumps and move forward next time.
I managed a double on the last hole, so I shot a 46 on the front, and that was with a 12 on #8. Adjusted for handicapping purposes, I would have shot a 41. That sounds better, but of course that was not my true score.
Nothing really special happened on the back nine until I reached holes #15 and #16. I had set a goal to hit nine greens in regulation this round, and I hadn’t hit a single one on the back yet. I only needed to hit four more on the back after the sweet start, but I was running out by the time I reached #15. I had to hit the last four in a row to reach my goal now, so I had to hit this one.
I missed. My pitching wedge landed my ball just off the green on the left side. I used my putter from there, and my ball rolled right at the flag and actually tapped it. Sadly, it tapped it, and then it popped away five inches instead of going in. I nearly had a birdie from off the green there.
Then on #16, I smashed one of my best drives ever. I didn’t find my ball right away, even though it should have been in the fairway, and then I saw it resting on the circular, red 100 yards to the middle marker. I took my free drop, and I played a 101 yard shot with my gap wedge. My ball was on the middle on the right side, but the flag was in the middle on the left side. It was about a 30 foot putt, and my ball tracked toward the hole, moving right to left and downhill, and then it locked right in on the flagstick again. Then the exact same thing happened. My ball tapped the stick and bounced out to less than half a foot away. I tapped in for a second par in a row, and that was my first green in regulation on the back. I managed one more on the next hole, so I ended up getting seven. Two short of my goal, but much better than yesterday!
Oh, one more cool thing happened on #16 yesterday, too, and I want to get that in here as well. Shawn played well, and I struggled. Well, I did manage one par on the back nine, and it was on this hole. My tee shot bounced up to the top of the lone tree that is left of the fairway and near the 150-yard marker, and then it fell straight down. Of course, it was right up next to the trunk of the tree with no option to go for the green. Remember, golf can be a cruel bully sometimes. Because of the branches, I had to take my time to figure out which way I wanted to punch out.
I finally decided to punch it out by spreading my legs a bit with my back to the fairway and slapping it between them. It worked! It reminded me a bit of when Sergio climbed a tree to backhand his ball back to the fairway, but I did it between my legs instead.
I had just over 160 yards to the middle of the green, so I chose my 7-iron, but it came out a little lower than I wanted. Thankfully, it bounced off that same hill where I had chipped in for a birdie recently, kicked forward, and stopped on the green left of the hole. I had a left to right uphill putt that was just over fifteen feet long, and I aimed about a foot to the left and hit it hard. As it slowed, it kept turning and turning towards the hole, and then it dribbled in on the side. That may be one of the coolest pars I have ever made. Shawn was impressed, and I earned four points on that hole for the par and the win.
Until next time…
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