I booked a last minute round on the Old Course at Hidden Lake. Teeing off at 3:30 pm, there seemed to be plenty of time to get the round in before sundown. Unfortunately, the course was packed, and the front nine in particular was slow going. Playing in a twosome, we had to wait on every shot. Driving up to the eighth tee, there were two other groups waiting. Three guys in the group ahead of us quit after nine, so my partner and I joined the last of their foursome to form a new threesome. The back nine was a bit quicker, but the damage had already been done. We were fighting the light over the last four holes, not to mention the possibility of a thunderstorm. It was close, but we squeezed the entire round in.
I played great golf on the front nine, with the exception of the opening hole. My drive popped up in the air, travelling only 190 yards. Next, I hit a 5-iron fat, finishing in the left rough. My sand wedge slid under the ball, which came up short of the green. After a decent pitch shot, I 3-putt for triple bogey. I had not done any practice putting, so it took me a while to get used to the speed of the greens. I had four 3-putts all day, and three of them came in the first five holes. On holes #3 and #5, these 3-putts were disappointing because I had reached the greens in regulation. I should have made easy pars, but walked away with bogeys instead.
I drove the ball reasonably well all day. My misses with the driver recently have tended to be to the left. That's because I consciously tried to swing more from the inside. If I turned my wrists over too much, the result was a short hook. I abandoned that move, allowing my more “natural” swing to come through. It's not pretty, but it seems like I can control it more. It produces a more predictable fade, but I do lose distance. On this day, it was a fair tradeoff. When I missed fairways, it was to the right, but just by a small margin.
What I really liked, however, was my iron play. To a large extent, I did the same thing with the irons as I did with the driver. This eliminated the hook shots, which was my tendency recently. With the more natural feeling swings, I could open up the club face a little bit and really get the ball airborne. This was useful on a couple of occasions when I had to launch the ball over some trees in order to recover. It also felt good when going for the greens.
The back nine was much like the front, though I struggled a bit on hole #13, a par-4. I favoured the left side with my tee shot to avoid out of bounds. Needing to punch low under some trees to get back to the fairway on my second shot, I smacked a tree trunk, which sent the ball 20 yards behind where I began. My fourth shot into the green from 100 yards was caught fat, leading to triple bogey.
Aside from the two triples on the day, it was largely a string of bogeys, with a couple of pars offset by a couple of doubles. As the light disappeared over the last four holes, I pressed a little and the double bogeys became more frequent. It's not easy to play in those conditions, when you're rushing to get all 18 holes played. A sculled pitch shot and my final 3-putt of the day can be attributed to the situation. In both cases, the result was double bogey, when really, it should have been a pair of easy bogeys.
All in all, I'm happy with the result. I'm also happy with the way the season is progressing. I struggled a bit in 2011, but took two giant steps backwards in 2012 and 2013. I feel like I'm back at the 2011 level and trending in the right direction. My handicap factor is on the verge of breaking back into the teens, which would be most welcome.
Score: 94
Putts: 38
Fairways: 5
Greens: 4
Penalties: 2
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