Deepwoods Finale at Willow Valley

Last year, a tremendous final round at Willow Valley eased the pain of an otherwise disappointing season on the Deepwoods Golf Association Tour. This year, I had no such luck. I shot a familiar score of 102 and finished well back in the overall standings. The Deepwoods championship that I earned in 2008 now feels like a distant memory. Second place finishes in 2007 and 2010 now smell of opportunity lost.

On the practice range before the final round was played, I tried shortening my backswing and focused on trapping the ball with the irons. The result was good, so I took the new approach to the course itself. I must say, my irons were better than they have been all year. I had absolutely no side spin on my iron shots, producing very straight trajectories. A few of my irons came out lower than usual, but nevertheless, my distances were very predictable. I experienced a feeling of control with the irons that has been absent for a long time.

On hole #3, a 7-iron into the wind from 150 yards found the green left of the flag. On the next hole, a 4-iron off the tee stopped just off the green but flag high, 190 yards away. On hole #5, a 6-iron from 170 yards felt rock solid, but found water right of the green. After taking a drop, I hit an immaculate shot with the gap wedge to within three feet of the cup. On hole #8, a 9-iron off the tee found the centre of the green. Great iron shots continued on the back nine, including wonderful approaches that found the green on holes #10, #15 and #17. I managed to make par on each of those holes.

With my irons working so well, how did I manage to score 102? For one thing, my driver was poor. I pulled drives into opposite fairways and even into bunkers of opposite fairways. I also hit drives into some gnarly fescue. From those positions, all one could do is take a hack to get the ball back in play. On one occasion, I tried a 5-wood off the tee with disastrous results. While my driver seems to come and go, I have not been able to hit my fairway woods for a long time.

In addition, my putting was terrible. I had only 34 putts overall and just two 3-putts, but I missed some very short ones. On hole #2, I missed a two and a half footer after a great chip. The same thing happened on hole #13. On hole #5, I missed another of similar length after a great approach. On holes #3 and #8, I made terrible lag attempts, resulting in a pair of 3-putts. Right there, you can see I gave away about five strokes through putting alone.

It's one of the cruel things about golf that even with improvements in mechanics, your scores don't necessarily get better. That certainly was the case this time around. My dreams of another Deepwoods championship will have to wait at least one more year.

Score: 102
Putts: 34
Fairways: 5
Greens: 6
Penalties: 4