Woodington The Day After

It was inevitable. Just one day after my best round ever, I headed out Woodington Lake Golf Club, where I quickly collected an inflated score. I wasn't expecting to duplicate my personal best, but I was definitely hoping for a result in the nineties. Alas, it didn't happen.

Thing started poorly on the first hole, a dogleg that requires a carefully placed shot off the tee. I pulled my tee shot into the trees on the left side of the fairway, as I had the last few times I had visited the course. A slight pull is fine on this hole, since there is an embankment that can steer many balls back into the fairway. Unfortunately, my pull was a little more severe, and I could not benefit from the embankment. I had to chip onto the fairway, and then chip again to the end of the fairway, in front of a steep slope. From 150 yards out, I actually hit the green, but a terrible first putt was followed by two more for a triple bogey.

The rest of the front nine was not bad, except for a couple of approach shots that were duffed on the fourth hole. Aside from those two shots, I was actually pretty happy with my game. I hit a few fairways, but did not hit any greens in regulation. I found myself chipping and two-putting quite a bit, resulting in a long string of bogeys. At the turn, I was shooting 49, so a score in the nineties was still attainable.

The first par of the day came on hole #11, a par-3 measuring 148 yards into a long green. The flag was at the back, so I used a 6-iron off the tee. It was a towering shot with a lot of height, and it landed softly when it hit the front part of the green. The birdie putt was long, with eight or ten feet of break. I judged it well and was left with a pretty easy putt for par.

The round fell apart on the next hole, a par-5 measuring 513 yards. I hit what I thought was a perfect drive, long and in line with my target. Unfortunately, the slope of the fairway steered the ball toward a pond that cuts in on the right side. The ball trickled about six inches into the water. I took a penalty stroke and dropped behind the point of entry. My next shot was a terrible mis-hit and the ball was in the water again. After my second drop, the subsequent shot was another mis-hit, you guessed it, into the water. After my third drop, I hit a shot near the green, but the damage was done. I ended up taking a score of 11 on the hole.

I had similar trouble on hole #15 and hole #18. When all was said and done, I had played fifteen holes of respectable golf and three holes of something resembling golf, but just barely. Three blowup holes is more than enough to push a score past the 100 mark, and that's exactly what happened.

I wasn't too upset, since I was still riding the high of scoring 82 a day earlier, but it's a shame I had a couple of bad holes. I have to eliminate those entirely if I am to find any consistency.

Score: 106
Par: 72
Putts: 35
Fairways: 4
Greens: 3