Written on 2-19-03.
Tomorrow parent/teacher conferences begin. I worked late after school today to complete a long Power Point presentation just for these conferences and the RETA class. Lots of things have happened since I last wrote, some good and some bad. I’ll start with the bad just to get it over with. Eric has defeated me a lot lately. Probably more than I have beaten him. I don’t take pleasure in beating him too much, but I really don’t like losing! I thought of another good thing about losing and not playing well sometimes. That means that Eric and all the other people who beat me sometimes are setting the bar. I want that bar to be very high if I expect to get better. Also, getting beat gets me fired up and makes me want to practice and get better. So, that’s three reasons to suffer through a bad round. The alternative is to play against people worse than I am and beat them all the time. Boring! Who wants to do that?
In real golf, he has shot some pretty low scores on the golf course during...
cold and terrible weather. I can’t remember all of his scores, but they are usually something like 45 to my 50-something. Eric has not only beaten me badly on the golf course, but on the GameCube as well. On Tiger Woods 2003, even when I shoot a great round like 62, yes 62, he shoots a course record 58, or just the other day, a 57! Yes, a 57 on eighteen holes. He got the record for most birdies in a row and for most birdies in a round. I feel like I am playing against Tiger myself on my own GameCube game! I tease him by saying he should own the game.It hasn’t been all bad, though. I have defeated Eric a few times, too. I beat him in the match play game we played at Riverview. It came down to the putting green after the eighteenth hole. I double-putted to beat him. In that round, I had a nice par on hole #12 which started off with a huge fade off the tee that helped me win the “longest drive” for that round. I also had two great bogeys on holes #11 and #18. On #18, I hit a terrible tee shot and a worse second shot which barely got on the fairway and was still very far from the green. From there, however, it was a long 4-iron to the left side of the green, a beautiful pitch to four or five feet, (just the way I had imagined it) and a putt into the cup from there.
I also beat him at a skins game we played at Hidden Valley. It actually came down to beating him by having the longest drive on hole #6, and by hitting it closest to the pin on #16, which together earned me an extra $10,000.00. He says it was a tie, but I contend that we agreed to play skins at the beginning, so even though he beat me at stroke play, I won at the game we had agreed upon that day. He did have a much lower score, though, another 40-something to my 50-something.
On President’s Day, we played at Pinon Hills using our gift certificates for eighteen holes with a cart. They were birthday gifts from our wives. What a great day! We decided on stroke play. On the front nine, I shot a 49 to his 46. I shot that score, and that included a 10, yes a 10, on hole #5, the one with the canyon. I pulled a 9-iron approach so badly that the ball hit the cart path and ended up on the other side of the cart path that takes you to the next hole, down the hill, and behind the green! At least I cleared the canyon. ha I was mostly impressed with how much I maintained my composure after such a disaster. I went to the next hole like nothing had happened. I was very proud of how I stayed in the present after that. To make a long story shorter, we tied at the end of the round, 96 to 96. I shot a 47 on the back to Eric’s 50, and I even birdied hole #13 with, I believe, a longer putt than the one at Jeff’s first tournament. I also earned par on two other holes, #2 and #14. I will write about those next time.
Gotta go to bed now. Conferences tomorrow! Oh, I want to also write about my plan before I played and how much it helped me maintain my focus throughout the round. That and how BFL has continued to help as well. Until next time…
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