First Time at Oaks of St. George

Aah, the dreaded course that has never been played. On the one hand, I enjoy expanding my golf horizons. On the other, I hate what these courses do to my scorecard -- and ego.

So it was for the second round of the Duffer's Dream Tour, held at The Oaks of St. George, located in Paris, Ontario. I thought for certain that this one would be rained out, but after passing through a torrential downpour just east of Brantford, the skies cleared up and the sun came out. The entire round was rain free, and any rain that fell on the course must have drained away quickly, because there was no sign of it whatsoever.

The course itself is a nice layout, featuring three par-5 and three par-3 holes. None of the holes are exactly alike, which keeps things interesting. A few of the holes are a little tight, while others are closer to wide open. Overall, the balance is good. There's enough water and sand to come into play at times, but nothing unreasonable. The condition of the course was good, with consistent greens and fairways. However, I wouldn't describe the course as immaculate or pristine. Dandelions, for instance, seemed to be thriving in the rough.

As for my game, it was a very up and down kind of day. I recorded seven pars, which is quite good, but these were offset by four triple-bogeys and two holes which I just categorize as "meltdowns" (i.e. worse than triple-bogey). I don't have much confidence in my driving right now. I did hit five fairways, but a couple of my misses were scary slices to the right. Easy to fix, right? Yeah, except a couple of my other misses were strong pulls to the left. Aargh! My iron play was OK, no real complaints there. My putting however, was horrible. I simply could not make a decent lag putt whenever I was some distance from the hole. There were far too many 3-putts on my scorecard and even a 4-putt. To add insult to injury, the 4-putt came when I had reached a green in regulation. Doh!

Perhaps the most troubling thing about this round was my inability to deal with the hot, humid conditions. For much of the back nine, I was chugging water and splashing it over my head and face in an attempt to keep cool. Well, it didn't work. I played the last six holes with a headache caused by the heat. By the eighteenth hole, I was dying to get into the club house. Not surprisingly, I took a triple-bogey to close out the round.

I would have been happy to break 100 at a course I have not played before. As it was, I shot 100 even, so I'm not happy.

Score: 100
Par: 72
Putts: 40
Fairways: 5
Greens: 6