Frustration at Hunters' Glen

The Championship Course at Hunters' Glen Golf Club is a fine test for almost any golfer. No slouch when it comes to distance, the course features a modest amount of water, but plenty of trees to make things interesting. Located in Kleinburg, just northwest of Toronto, it's a great spot for city golfers.

I took a day off work to take advantage of the club's fall weekday rates. On Mondays and Tuesdays, a round of golf costs just $18, which is unheard of in the Greater Toronto Area. It's a good thing I didn't spend a lot of money, since I had an extremely frustrating day. I have to thank my playing partners for their patience. They put up with my antics the entire round, which could not have been easy.

Things started poorly on the first hole, a 432-yard par-4. My tee shot came up short, landing in a large pool of standing water. Though my second shot was perfect, I still had 90 yards to the flag. Sure enough, my next shot was a duff, followed by a wild one that drifted way to the right. If that wasn't bad enough, I ended up at the base of a tree trunk and could not chip toward the flag. It took me two more shots to get on the green and two putts to hole out for a quadruple bogey.

Quadruple bogey was also the result on the fourth hole, a par-5 ranked as the toughest hole on the course. Getting to the green was an adventure, especially when a couple chip shots sailed right across the putting surface. It's fair to say that this is when I lost my cool. Though I limited the damage on the next three holes to bogey or double-bogey, I was not feeling very good at all. On the eighth hole, the frustration manifested itself in some poor decisions. I knew they were bad decisions, but didn't really care. At that point, I was looking forward to a fresh start on the back nine.

Unfortunately, my tee shot on the tenth hole, a 146-yard par-3 over water, was perhaps the worst shot of the day. After a nice practice swing, I sliced into the dirt well before the ball, rattling my right shoulder along with my nerves. The ball dribbled into the water, forcing me to add a penalty stroke. That pretty much eliminated any chance of finding my game on the back nine.

I played out the rest of the round in a stupor, robotically hitting one ball after another, just waiting for it all to end. I actually made a couple of pars on the fourteenth and sixteenth holes, but it was way too little, and way too late. For fun, I used my driver to putt on the eighteenth green. That's the kind of day it was.

Score: 118
Par: 72
Putts: 36
Fairways: 4
Greens: 2