I played a rare weekend round at Mystic Golf Club, in Ancaster. It was my second visit of the year, but only my third ever. I improved my early season score by a single stroke, shooting 97 overall. Scoring was spread out fairly evenly, as I tallied 49 on the front nine and 48 on the back. I managed four pars, but these were offset by a pair of triple-bogeys. Interestingly, I was 9-over on the par-4 holes, of which there are ten. That's actually quite good! Unfortunately, I was 6-over on the four par-3 holes and a whopping 10-over on the four par-5 holes. I'm not sure if that means anything – it was probably just coincidence.
I won't provide many shot-by-shot accounts of what happened, because it would be very similar to my other blog posts. There were holes that I played without incident, resulting in par or bogey. When I tallied double-bogey or worse, it usually involved a slight error that put me in a tough situation. On a couple of occasions, shots that missed by just a few yards took really bad bounces, leaving me short-sided in some weeds or perhaps in a greenside bunker. The point is that I wasn't hacking it out there, even though the results make it look like that.
My driving was actually very good. As I have all year, I focused on feeling where my body wants to stop rotating, then extending ever so slightly past that. This shortens my swing and keeps my arms from getting too involved. It has the effect of keeping me on plane. The new bit was that I also thought of keeping my right elbow tucked closer to my body while executing that move. It worked very well. I was able to then follow through aggressively on the downswing, without fear of losing control. I hit 9 of 14 fairways this way. When I missed, it was barely. On three occasions, I was just a couple yards into the rough, while on two occasions, I was in a fairway bunker.
The best drive was probably on hole #13, a par-4 measuring just 314 yards from the silver tees. In my opinion, the layup off the tee is actually a tougher shot than just bombing away with driver. Deep bunkers pinch the left side of the landing zone, with woods on the right. Further ahead, the bunkers are not as deep and the fairway is wider. I blasted a laser of a shot through the end of the fairway, finishing in the rough just 15 yards from the green. I pitched on and 2-putt for par. This came on the heels of a similar drive on the previous hole, a 336-yard par-4. I was in the fairway, just 30 yards away from the green, after my drive. Unfortunately, I pitched over the back of the green into some fescue, leading to bogey.
While the driver was very consistent, the irons were less so. I hit four greens in regulation, which is fairly typical. Of course, the iron shots into those greens were good. On other occasions, however, the shots were mediocre. I didn't duff or scull any, but the fact is, I missed the greens. With my short game not very sharp, missing the greens becomes very penal. A better player could get up and down more often, thereby reducing the effect of missed greens. I wish I could do that!
As I alluded to, my short game was rather poor. I'm not referring to putting – that was fine. I'm talking about pitch shots in the 20-30 yard range, along with chip shots from closer. I fluffed a couple pitches, failing to even reach the green. Other times, I hit pitches that were much better, but which left very long putts to follow. As a bogey golfer, I'm in this situation a lot, so I have to be better near the greens to improve my scores. I really have to pitch and chip the ball near the flag to give myself a chance at making the subsequent putts. It's not good enough to simply pitch on the green and then 2-putt. That produces scores in the nineties, which is where I have been stuck almost all year.
I've played 30 rounds so far this season and have a trio of scores in the eighties (84, 86, 86). That's nice, but breaking 90 just ten percent of the time is not good enough.
Score: 97
Putts: 37
Fairways: 9
Greens: 4
Penalties: 4
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