It's a new calendar year and I've already played eight rounds this season. It's fair to say that my traditional year end review is well past due. Whether or not the extra time provides a different perspective remains to be seen. So without further delay, let's look back at how I fared over the 2018 golf season.
I played 38.5 rounds of golf in 2018, beginning April 23 and ending October 30. I'm usually able to play during the first couple weeks of November, but the weather didn't cooperate this time. As a result, total games played was lower than I would have liked. Over the previous four years, I played 40-45 rounds per season, which seems to be the minimum required to keep me semi-sharp. I'll be aiming for the same range in 2019.
The 38.5 rounds were played on 34 different golf courses, at 31 different clubs. The course I played most often was Doon Valley, with three visits. It's a decent layout, with good value, but a little far from home. Cardinal East, meanwhile, was the site of two visits. I played Osprey Valley Hoot twice in the same day, while Battlefield at Legends on the Niagara hosted 1.5 rounds, also in a single day. I actually made two other visits to Osprey Valley, one to play Heathlands and the other to play the North course (formerly Toot). Likewise, I made a couple of visits to Woodington Lake in order to play both the Legend and Legacy courses.
As always, I tried to visit a couple of new courses in 2018. Doon Valley was actually a new one for me. I guess the fact that I returned two more times in the same year indicates what I thought about the course. There's nothing spectacular about it, but it's fun to play and plenty challenging. A couple of Clublink properties, Blue Springs Golf Club and Heron Point Golf Links, were the other courses where I played for the first time. Both were part of the Deepwoods Golf Association schedule. The round at Blue Springs (105) was my worst of the year, and the one at Heron Point (99) was not far behind, tied for sixth worst. Terrible weather on the days I played there, along with the poor results, make it difficult to provide a fair assessment of the courses. Under normal conditions, I think I would have been quite pleased with both.
As for my performance, I wish there was some real progress to speak of. I finished the season with an 18.0 handicap factor, which was a little disappointing, considering that I started the season at 17.1 and spent a good chunk of the year in the 16's. My low of 16.3 came in mid August after a solid round at Woodington Lake Legacy. My average score for the year was 93.6 – an improvement over previous averages of 95.5 in 2017 and 94.4 in 2016. Of the 38.5 rounds played, five resulted in scores of 100 or worse, while I managed to break 90 on seven occasions. I would prefer never to reach 100, of course, but seven scores in the 80's is a pretty good offset. I shot 90 or 91 seven more times, so scoring in the 80's regularly is a realistic goal.
My best results of the year included an 84 at Copetown Woods in late May. I matched that score at Victoria Park East in early July. These rounds were just good enough to squeak into my Top 10 of all time, so that's something to be proud of. Also notable was an 86 on the New Course at Hidden Lake in late July. Copetown Woods and Hidden Lake were rounds 1 and 2 of the 2018 Deepwoods Golf Association championship. With those performances, I jumped out into first place in the standings – a position I occupied right up to the end of the season, but more on that later. When looking at my best rounds, the common denominator is penalty stroke avoidance. Frustratingly, I had many rounds where a high penalty tally just pushed my score above 90.
If I had to pick an individual highlight, it would have to be the eagle I made on hole 12 at Cardinal East. The round was pretty forgettable, but I went driver, 3-iron into the green on this par-5, followed by a 12-foot putt. It was only my third eagle ever, and first on a par-5. You would think that eagles come primarily on par-5 holes, but my previous two came on a par-4 and a par-3. The former was a hole-out from 135 yards, while the latter was a 150-yard hole-in-one. I finally managed to roll one in with the flat stick!
Delving deeper into some stats, there wasn't much change at all compared to recent years. I hit 5.3 fairways per round, compared to 5.5 in each of the last two seasons. I hit 3.8 greens in regulation per round, compared to 3.7 and 3.9 in the two years prior. In my last year-end review, I thought a reasonable goal was to hit 7 fairways and 6 greens per round, which equates to 50 and 33 percent, respectively. It still feels like that should be attainable, but I've had that feeling for a long time and the results have never materialized. The fairway numbers don't bother me too much – I often miss the fairway by just a couple of yards, which keeps me in good enough position to score well. The greens figures are more alarming. You simply can't score well with a suspect short game if you're not hitting more greens in regulation.
As for putting, I averaged 34.3 putts per round in 2018. Compare that with averages of 35.4 and 34.6 over the previous two years. Statistically speaking, it's an improvement, but common sense tells me there has really been no change. I switched to a different putter in 2018 and it felt good, so I'll continue to use it moving forward. Finally, there are penalty strokes. I averaged 3.1 of those per round in 2018, compared to 3.4 and 3.3 in the years prior. It's a reduction, and I'll take it gladly, but you really want this number to be close to zero. Nothing inflates scores more than penalty strokes, so they really have to be eliminated.
I'll end with a few words about the Deepwoods Golf Association championship. I jumped into first place after the first event at Copetown Woods, where I scored a perfect 40 points, with a gross score of 84. Round 2 at Hidden Lake was much the same. I collected 38 points, with a gross score of 86. The next two rounds were terrible, by comparison. Rounds of 105 and 99 on the unfamiliar grounds of Blue Springs and Heron Point added just 23 and 29 points, respectively, to my season total. I remained in first place however, as everyone struggled at those two rounds. The weather and condition of the courses was largely to blame.
The championship was mine to lose going into the final round at Peninsula Lakes. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I did. I shot 97 and only earned 29 points, but I felt like I played a pretty solid round. In the end, three of us were tied for first place, so we went to a sudden death playoff. Of course, my second shot on the playoff hole was my worst of the day – a 5-iron that I topped into a pond just ahead. I held first place the entire season, but gave it away right there. It was the second time in four years that I lost the championship in a 3-man playoff. Very frustrating indeed.
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