The Rest of the First Annual Spring Celebration-How'd We Do?

Written on 6-21-22.

        I have the longest day of the year to do some writing today.  Hooray!

4-I gave Eric free rein to go for it on this par five.  My 3-wood got us safely in position for him to use his driver, and he hit a smooth draw that matched the curve of the fairway.  We were under a tree, and I used my 9-iron to lay up again.  That done, he went for the green with gusto, and it ended up a short pitch from the hole. 

Our playing partners struggled mightily on this hole, hitting shots from the desert rough that put them right back in the rough again.  We had to wait patiently and help them find golf balls until they eventually found the green.

We got back-to-back birdies after this hole, so we were back to even after our bogey, bogey start.

5-My tee shot hit the trees on the corner of the dogleg.  Eric topped his tee shot.  I went for the green despite the overhanging branches, but my golf ball was rejected, and it ended up on the fairway, but it was about the same distance away from where I was.  Eric tried to hit a big draw, but he scuffed it a bit, so it didn’t go very far, but it was closer than mine.  From the first cut, I chose my 8-iron, and I hit a beauty.  It was into the wind, and it dropped 12 feet left of the hole.  We made that for a super par save.

6-We made another bogey despite being right off the green in two shots.  Two bad chips were the reason.

The ranger asked us to pick up our pace, but when I spoke to him privately after I teed off, he said...

he could see what was going on.  He must have seen the struggle on hole #4.  Our playing partners were really dragging along and not keeping up with the pace of play…or us.

7-We both hit the green, and so did Brandt.  He missed the closest to the pin on this hole and hole #3 by a foot or so.  Eric’s was closer, and I had the better lag to get our par.

8-Our tee shots were less than a yard away from each other, and they were right of the fairway.  Eric’s was a bit farther to the right, so it had a slight advantage to avoid the trees.  His 7-iron found the green on the left side and hole high, and my 6-iron was just off the green on the left, too.  My putt went off the green!  At least I gave him a read?

9-I told Eric to go left, and he did the opposite.  I went left, but too far; my ball ended up a few inches out of bounds, but it was definitely out.  I asked Eric to mark his ball before I drove off to find my ball just in case, and we were both happy that I did.  We were high enough with his tee shot that we had a good angle to go over the trees.  If we ended up farther down the hill, we couldn’t consider going over them.  I went second, and I launched a 7-iron over the trees that landed my ball on the front of the green and right of the hole.  

Eric putted first, and then I followed up with a birdie putt on a difficult hole.  At least, I think it is difficult due to the tough tee shot.

10-Eric had the better tee shot, but it was off the fairway in the dirt, and we had to punch out.  At least we could punch out and advance our golf balls.  I swore I had found the fairway.  My tee shot went dead straight (right where I was aiming), but my golf ball got caught in the longer grass, because the fairway kinked over to the right.  I should have remembered that from when I had just played here.

My 5-iron got my ball a bit farther than his 6-iron, so we used mine.  His pitch caught the right side of the green, and I made a putt to a spot on the tier where the hole was.  We made a par, and we were still one under.

11-Eric had the best drive of the day here, and we had a pitch from 50-60 yards for our approach.  We both hit wonderful pitches again, but Eric’s was a tad closer, so we chose that one, of course.  My putt barely missed on the low side, breaking away at the final second.  We got another par, and we only had one hole left.

12-My 8-iron pulled to the left, so we missed the green.  It was even with the hole, but we had to get up and in for one final par.  Eric made a better pitch, but we still had a long putt to seal the deal.  We both missed, so we got a bogey on the closing hole, and it did make a difference for where we ended up with the prize money.

We did great!  We ended up in 4th place out of 21 teams.  I figured if we got it to even we would have a chance, and we did! 

I played with Bruce and Norm yesterday, and I earned two more birdies, so I will get those in here later.

Until next time…