Weather was once again co-operative, so I headed out for an afternoon round at Pheasant Run Golf Club. Fall rates were in effect, and it turned out to be good value. With a lot of mature trees on the property, fallen leaves always threaten to put a damper on autumn rounds at Pheasant Run, even though staff does a great job clearing the fairways and greens. On this occasion, the leaves were not very troublesome at all.
I'm happy to say that I played much better than I did at my previous round. I registered three pars, eight bogeys, six double-bogeys, and one triple bogey, for a final score of 95. Given the cool conditions, that's really not bad at all.
I used the driver sparingly, opting for 3-wood or 3-iron off the tee most of the time. One exception was hole #5 on the Highlands course. I felt there was enough room between the forest on either side of the fairway, so I decided to have a rip with the big stick. It was my best drive of the day and set me up nicely for a satisfying par. Generally, my play off the tee was good, though I did lose a couple of tee shots in the forest.
Iron play was nothing to boast about, but also not bad. A few approach shots were what I call rattlers. These are shots where the ball misses the sweet spot of the club face, sending vibrations along the shaft and ultimately absorbed by the hands. You know it's getting cold when rattlers become more and more common.
Finally, my putting was pretty good, as I recorded 36 in total. There were three 3-putts, which nullified a trio of 1-putts.
This was round 45 of the year and we haven't reached November yet. With any luck, I'll get out a couple more times.
Score: 95
Par: 72
Putts: 36
Fairways: 5
Greens: 1
October 26, 2009
October 24, 2009
Season Slipping Away
We had surprisingly balmy conditions for my last round, which was played on the Masters Course at Lionhead Golf & Country Club. It's a shame I wasted the good weather with extremely poor play - my worst of the season.
Beginning our round on the back nine, I blew up on the very first hole played. It's tough to stay focused when you know after a single hole that a good score for the round is no longer possible. I tried to concentrate on each shot and it worked for a few holes, but then I blew up on another one and was basically toast from that point forward.
While I was striking the ball terribly, both from the tee and elsewhere, I was actually putting very well. Through twelve holes, I had registered just 21 putts. After pointing that out to my playing partners, I proceeded to 3-putt the next three holes. So much for that silver lining.
I finished the round with my worst score of the season. The ony bright spot was the fact that I scored par on all four of the par-3 holes. Big whoop.
I hope this doesn't end up being the last round of the season, or it will surely leave a sour taste in my mouth all winter.
Score: 122
Par: 72
Putts: 35
Fairways: 3
Greens: 1
Beginning our round on the back nine, I blew up on the very first hole played. It's tough to stay focused when you know after a single hole that a good score for the round is no longer possible. I tried to concentrate on each shot and it worked for a few holes, but then I blew up on another one and was basically toast from that point forward.
While I was striking the ball terribly, both from the tee and elsewhere, I was actually putting very well. Through twelve holes, I had registered just 21 putts. After pointing that out to my playing partners, I proceeded to 3-putt the next three holes. So much for that silver lining.
I finished the round with my worst score of the season. The ony bright spot was the fact that I scored par on all four of the par-3 holes. Big whoop.
I hope this doesn't end up being the last round of the season, or it will surely leave a sour taste in my mouth all winter.
Score: 122
Par: 72
Putts: 35
Fairways: 3
Greens: 1
October 11, 2009
Why Does Golf Always Feel Like a Battlefield?
You thought Jordin Sparks was singing about love? Perhaps she was, but golf is synonymous with love, isn't it? In any case, golf courses often do feel like a battlefield, so it was appropriate that I played one named as such. I'm speaking, of course, about the Doug Carrick designed course at Legends on the Niagara. I have been meaning to play Legends for a couple of years, but this was the first time I actually got around to it.
In order to reach the battlefield, I had to crawl through the trenches. In this case, that meant horrendous traffic getting out of Toronto. Special thanks to the city planners who decided it would be a good day to close down the Gardiner Expressway. I had a lot of fun during the hour and a half it took to travel eight kilometres. Needless to say, I arrived at the course late. Fortunately, the staff there was incredibly understanding and managed to get me on the first tee very quickly.
Besides traffic, the story of the day was weather. For mid-October, the temperature was actually pleasant. Wind was moderate, and there was no rain to speak of - except, of course, the rain that had fallen the night before. The fairways were completely saturated with water, ruining most approach shots. On long iron shots that were struck well, the ball would travel 20 yards less than usual. My theory is that soft ground prevents the ball from being fully compressed at impact. On short iron shots, I was frequently taking massive, beaver-tail divots. Under normal conditions, those would have been good shots. Under these conditions, I was coming up 10 or 20 yards short of the green.
The water-logged fairways didn't help my play off the tee either. I managed to hit seven fairways, but the ball would stop dead as soon as it hit the ground. This meant I was playing long irons into the greens, instead of more manageable short irons. I can't blame the water for all of my driving trouble however. I struggled early in the round to keep my swing on plane and to keep the club face square. Despite my best effort, I was swinging over the top with an open club face, resulting in the banana-shaped shots I know all too well from my early golfing days. Late in the round, I did manage to straighten out my drives, which provided some degree of consolation.
Ironically, the best part of my game was putting. All year long, I have struggled with the putter, typically collecting over 36 putts per round. On this day, I amassed merely 32 putts, thanks in part to five holes that required a single putt each. One of these was a 40-foot breaker on hole #8 to save par. It was easily the best shot of the day.
My last four rounds have been played in very poor conditions. Prime golf season is clearly over and it will be tough to do battle from this point forward.
You better go and get your armour.
Score: 101
Par: 72
Putts: 32
Fairways: 7
Greens: 0
October 05, 2009
Bad Karma at The Highlands
I'll have more to say about The Highlands in a little while. For now, here is a summary of some rounds I played earlier in the year, but didn't have a chance to write about until recently. It includes my two best rounds of the year!
Season Low at Lochness Links
New Season Low at Carlisle
Poor Start, Good Finish at Georgian Bay
UPDATE: OK, here's how it went down at The Highlands (Bradford, that is). It was cold and drizzly, but I managed to score eight over par for eight of the holes on the front nine. If you aren't very good at the maths, that equals bogey golf, which for me is pretty good. The problem is, I scored seven over par on the remaining hole. Read that again if you think you misunderstood. I'll wait.
Did you read it again? See? You understood perfectly. Your reading comprehension is clearly better than your maths. How, you may ask, is it possible to score seven over par on a single hole? Easy, just consult the nearest dictionary and look up the words "collapse" or "disaster" to find your answer. If you need a more vivd description, think rain, wind, out-of-bounds, twice, penalty strokes, fescue, pulled shot, short approach, bunker, missed green, chip, two-putt. Isn't it grand?
On the back nine, I managed to score six over par for seven of the holes. With your newly aquired maths expertise, you should realize that is even better than bogey golf. Wow, I'm good! The problem is, I scored a couple of triple-bogeys on the remaining two holes. And by the way, they happened to be the first and last holes on the back nine. The bookend holes. What better way to frame a better-than-bogey stretch of seven holes than with a pair of beautiful bookends?
Now, I don't want to give you too much maths at one time lest you strain your brain, but trust me when I say that adding up the front and back nines tells me that I played fifteen holes of better-than-bogey golf (awesome, dude!) and three holes of crap. For a better appreciation of the term "crap" please consult previously referenced dictionary.
Seriously, the two or three blow-up holes I seem to have during every round need to stop. They absolutely ruin an otherwise good performance.
Score: 99
Par: 72
Putts: 36
Fairways: 7
Greens: 2
Season Low at Lochness Links
New Season Low at Carlisle
Poor Start, Good Finish at Georgian Bay
UPDATE: OK, here's how it went down at The Highlands (Bradford, that is). It was cold and drizzly, but I managed to score eight over par for eight of the holes on the front nine. If you aren't very good at the maths, that equals bogey golf, which for me is pretty good. The problem is, I scored seven over par on the remaining hole. Read that again if you think you misunderstood. I'll wait.
Did you read it again? See? You understood perfectly. Your reading comprehension is clearly better than your maths. How, you may ask, is it possible to score seven over par on a single hole? Easy, just consult the nearest dictionary and look up the words "collapse" or "disaster" to find your answer. If you need a more vivd description, think rain, wind, out-of-bounds, twice, penalty strokes, fescue, pulled shot, short approach, bunker, missed green, chip, two-putt. Isn't it grand?
On the back nine, I managed to score six over par for seven of the holes. With your newly aquired maths expertise, you should realize that is even better than bogey golf. Wow, I'm good! The problem is, I scored a couple of triple-bogeys on the remaining two holes. And by the way, they happened to be the first and last holes on the back nine. The bookend holes. What better way to frame a better-than-bogey stretch of seven holes than with a pair of beautiful bookends?
Now, I don't want to give you too much maths at one time lest you strain your brain, but trust me when I say that adding up the front and back nines tells me that I played fifteen holes of better-than-bogey golf (awesome, dude!) and three holes of crap. For a better appreciation of the term "crap" please consult previously referenced dictionary.
Seriously, the two or three blow-up holes I seem to have during every round need to stop. They absolutely ruin an otherwise good performance.
Score: 99
Par: 72
Putts: 36
Fairways: 7
Greens: 2
Hanging in There at Angus Glen
The latest and final round of the 2009 GTA Amateur Tour kicked off on a very cold and wet Monday morning at Angus Glen Golf Club. My flight played the North Course, which I had never played before, but was familiar with from my experience as a standard-bearer at the 2007 Canadian Open. The round was a test of endurance, both physical and mental, as numerous rain delays, bitter cold, and strong wind challenged players to shoot good scores.
I started the round on the tenth hole, hit a driver and long iron into the wind, and still came up short of the green. No worries, as I chipped on and two-putt for bogey. On the eleventh hole, a par-5 that hugs the side of a large pond, I did very well to reach the green in regulation. Unfortunately, my first putt traveled right off the green, forcing me to chip back on. It ended up in double-bogey. Hole #12 featured one of my best shots on the day. After hitting the left side of the fairway, I hit a 5-iron over the edge of a pond and a greenside bunker, ending up flag high. I added three extra clubs to account for the headwind and it turned out to be precisely the right call. Too bad I missed the birdie and the par putt, settling for bogey. I also bogeyed the next three holes, hitting nice drives, one good recovery shot, but less than perfect putts. After a pair of double-bogeys on holes #16 and #17, I finally tallied a par on hole #18. My approach to the green was pulled slightly left, but I hit a great chip shot to within two feet and followed it up with the easy tap-in.
After nine holes, I had hit seven of seven fairways. They are fairly generous in width on the North Course, but with the severe wind on that day it was quite an accomplishment. If not for the twenty putts I took, the first half of the round would have been even better.
On the front nine of the course, I began with a trio of triple bogeys. My streak of fairways hit came to an end on hole #2. This is a par-4 measuring 409 yards, but I needed a driver, 4-iron, and pitching wedge to reach the green with the wind blasting directly into our faces. This is also when the weather was most severe. At one point, the rain turned into hail and lightning forced us off the course. After a brief delay, we returned with six holes to play, of which I bogeyed three and double-bogeyed the other three. The last hole was played once again in cold, driving rain.
Overall, I was happy with the way I played. Considering the conditions, I did well to score no worse than double-bogey on any single hole. It was the type of round where I played better than the final score would seem to indicate. I finished in 13th position in a field of 37 players, which is not bad. As usual, there was a tightly clustered group of players ahead of me. Had I been two strokes better, I would have been tied for 7th.
As for the GTA Amateur Tour season, I finished 19th out of 88 players. Granted, a lot of those guys did not play a full slate of rounds, but I still feel fairly good about the result.
Score: 98
Par: 72
Putts: 40
Fairways: 10
Greens: 4
I started the round on the tenth hole, hit a driver and long iron into the wind, and still came up short of the green. No worries, as I chipped on and two-putt for bogey. On the eleventh hole, a par-5 that hugs the side of a large pond, I did very well to reach the green in regulation. Unfortunately, my first putt traveled right off the green, forcing me to chip back on. It ended up in double-bogey. Hole #12 featured one of my best shots on the day. After hitting the left side of the fairway, I hit a 5-iron over the edge of a pond and a greenside bunker, ending up flag high. I added three extra clubs to account for the headwind and it turned out to be precisely the right call. Too bad I missed the birdie and the par putt, settling for bogey. I also bogeyed the next three holes, hitting nice drives, one good recovery shot, but less than perfect putts. After a pair of double-bogeys on holes #16 and #17, I finally tallied a par on hole #18. My approach to the green was pulled slightly left, but I hit a great chip shot to within two feet and followed it up with the easy tap-in.
After nine holes, I had hit seven of seven fairways. They are fairly generous in width on the North Course, but with the severe wind on that day it was quite an accomplishment. If not for the twenty putts I took, the first half of the round would have been even better.
On the front nine of the course, I began with a trio of triple bogeys. My streak of fairways hit came to an end on hole #2. This is a par-4 measuring 409 yards, but I needed a driver, 4-iron, and pitching wedge to reach the green with the wind blasting directly into our faces. This is also when the weather was most severe. At one point, the rain turned into hail and lightning forced us off the course. After a brief delay, we returned with six holes to play, of which I bogeyed three and double-bogeyed the other three. The last hole was played once again in cold, driving rain.
Overall, I was happy with the way I played. Considering the conditions, I did well to score no worse than double-bogey on any single hole. It was the type of round where I played better than the final score would seem to indicate. I finished in 13th position in a field of 37 players, which is not bad. As usual, there was a tightly clustered group of players ahead of me. Had I been two strokes better, I would have been tied for 7th.
As for the GTA Amateur Tour season, I finished 19th out of 88 players. Granted, a lot of those guys did not play a full slate of rounds, but I still feel fairly good about the result.
Score: 98
Par: 72
Putts: 40
Fairways: 10
Greens: 4
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