Round 2 of the Deepwoods championship took place at Peninsula Lakes Golf Club last Sunday. I arrived more than two hours before the first tee time, as I had volunteered to check-in players and help with any issues that might arise. Ironically, I didn't even have time to practice on the range, as a last-minute scheduling change bumped my foursome up by about 50 minutes. I quickly hit a half dozen balls and rushed to the tee. Worst of all, I didn't get to take a single putt or chip.
My first ball was in the water, but I followed up with a surprisingly good 5-iron to reach the par-4 opening hole in three strokes. With two putts, I managed to save a bogey. I hit the green in regulation on hole #2, a par-3. Facing a long putt, I had no sense of the green speeds. Of course, I 3-putt for another bogey. The short game imploded on the next hole, a par-4 with a sharp dogleg to the left. I was just off the back edge of the green after my first two shots. My first chip of the day was miserable, barely getting on the green. From there, I needed 4 putts to hole out, including two misses from less than 2 feet!
Now, I have been struggling with my golf game for a long time. On any given day, my shots could be doing a number of things. I could be slicing drives one moment, and pulling or hooking them the next. I could be hitting irons fat, then suddenly catching them thin. I could be chipping and putting well for a bit of a stretch, followed by another where the short game disappears. It is what it is, but the last thing I need is to enter a competition without taking a single chip or putt beforehand, especially when I arrive at the course 3 hours before my scheduled tee time!
On hole #4, a drive that wasn't terrible managed to settle under a spruce tree. The ball was unplayable. After a penalty stroke, an 8-iron that wasn't terrible managed to settle – you guessed it – under a spruce tree. I did manage to hack that one out to the green, finishing with a double bogey. Something similar happened on hole #8, the second of two back-to-back par-5 holes. My drive drifted right and luck was once again not on my side. With branches severely impeding my backswing, I advanced the ball a whole 4 yards! The end result was another double-bogey.
Worse than bad luck is when good decisions go unrewarded. On hole #6, a long par-3, I duffed my tee shot into a pond. The ball entered the hazard, but did not actually make it to the water. Unfortunately, it was in a rut that made playing it very tricky. The wise thing to do was to declare the ball unplayable and just take the penalty. That's exactly what I did. I dropped behind the hazard, keeping the point where the ball last crossed the margin between me and the hole. Then I absolutely butchered a 60-yard pitch attempt from a nice, flat lie, failing to get anywhere near the green. Good decision making is of little use when you can't execute the subsequent shot. I finished the hole with a quadruple bogey.
I could go on, but what's the point? I made the turn with a score of 54. I played the back nine even worse, piling up another 61 strokes. For goodness sake, I amassed 12 strokes on the tenth hole alone, a puny 290-yard par-4. I topped a 5-wood off the tee. I shanked a 9-iron out of bounds. I almost went out of bounds again after taking a penalty. I hit another spruce tree trying to get back to the fairway, where my ball ended up unplayable. Geez!
I hit only one fairway the entire round. It came on Hillside #4, which is the toughest on the course. A slight mis-hit on my approach to the green came up short. I should have finished with no worse than bogey, but a duffed pitch attempt bumped that up to a double. I salvaged two consecutive pars near the end of the round, but even those were ugly. The first came after a terrible drive to an opposite fairway. It was a miracle that my second shot, with the 5-wood, cleared a group of trees and rolled down a hill back to the fairway.
Whatever. It's been 10 years since I started playing this game and this is the type of result I had in the first few games I ever played. #@&*!
Score: 115
Putts: 40
Fairways: 1
Greens: 1
Penalties: 7
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