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