There has been a lot of rain lately, so I hadn't played in almost two weeks. Venturing out for a rare weekend round, I opted for Hunters Pointe Golf Course (formerly Lochness Links). Anticipating that traffic would be worse on the weekend, I allowed two and a half hours to get to the course. That is double the normal travel time. Well, it took me exactly 2 hours and 27 minutes to arrive. Traffic was relentless over the entire QEW. It was only over the final stretch along Hwy 406 that I found any relief. Rushing to check in and greet the the starter, I was driven up to join a threesome already waiting on the first tee.
Not surprisingly, I blew up on the first hole, finishing 5 over par. That included two unplayable balls, two penalty strokes, and a 3-putt. It's hard to expect anything else when you haven't stretched or loosened up in any fashion, nor made any practice putts. I simply forgot about it and moved on to the next hole. The remainder of the front nine was literally hit or miss. I hit some shots that were wonderful, but for each of those there was one that was absolutely terrible. With the driver, my misses were mostly straight pulls, well left of target. I also hit one duck hook. With the irons, I caught the ball fat a few times. I also shanked one out of bounds on a very short par-3.
I tend to focus on mistakes in my writing, so let's concentrate on the good shots for a change. I piped a beauty off the tee with the driver on hole #3. This is a blind tee shot that has to fly over the crest of a hill to a plateau in the landing zone. I hit it exactly where I wanted, ending up through the fairway, which bends slightly to the right before straightening out again. I was also deep and straight with the driver on hole #7, a 420-yard par-4. This one came to rest in the left fairway, 150 yards from the flag. My approach with the 8-iron was flag-high, left of the pin. I proceeded to 2-putt for my first par of the day.
Par was also the result on hole #8, a 215-yard par-3. The tees were up on this day, so the hole was playing about 190 yards. I hit a brilliant 4-iron high and straight. I was all over the flag, but rolled past, just off the back of the green. I hit a mediocre chip, but followed up with a nice uphill putt. Finally, on hole #9, a picturesque par-5, I absolutely drilled my drive off the elevated tee. It is 307 yards to a creek that crosses the fairway, and I was worried that my ball had gone in. As it turned out, my ball stopped 2 feet before the hazard. It was on a downward slope, so I struggled a bit with my next shot, ending up just 50 yards ahead in a fairway bunker. Still, I managed to bogey the hole.
For much of the back nine, I continued the stretch of decent golf that began with the seventh hole. There were costly mistakes, for sure, but there was also a fair share of very good shots. On hole #10, a short par-4, I found myself in a fairway bunker after a good tee shot. 100 yards from the flag, I caught the ball thin, sending it bounding across the green and into some thick fescue. Actually, calling it fescue is not really accurate. It is thick and long vegetation and impossible to find a ball in there. I had to take a penalty, then drop in the bunker and replay the shot. Double bogey was the result. I had the same result on hole #11, thanks to a 4-iron that I duck hooked from the tee. My recovery attempts were feeble, to say the least.
I hit the green in regulation on hole #12, a medium length par-3. Unfortunately, I 3-putt for bogey. The greens at Hunters Pointe are sometimes large, with a good degree of undulation. 3-putts can happen easily if you're starting out on the wrong part of the putting surface. On hole #14, a 519-yard par-5, I hit a sweet drive to the middle of the fairway. A solid 3-wood from 260 yards drifted just right of the fairway, leaving a 30-yard pitch shot. From that position, I hit the green and 2-putt for par.
I also made par on hole #16, a short par-4 at just 282 yards. There is a little rise just before the green and on this day, the wind was not helping. I hit a wonderful drive, but came up about 20 yards short of the green. I pitched on and 2-putt for yet another par. Unfortunately, that was my last good hole of the day, as I finished with a pair of triple-bogeys. On hole #17, my second shot was from a mound with the ball well above my feet. I pull hooked the ball into a water hazard. Fearing water which lines the entire right side of hole #18, and which has to be crossed both on the tee shot as well as the approach shot, I played some weak, tentative shots. You could tell I did not have confidence. Despite my timid approach, I still managed to trickle in the water, thanks to a topped ball.
In the end, I shot 106. What can I say? This appears to be what I shoot these days. For comparison, I looked back at my GTA Amateur Tour rounds from 2010. Back then, my scoring average was 93.6 over 11 rounds. I barely topped 100 (scoring 101 on two occasions) and broke 90 three times (85, 88, 89). The rest of my rounds were in the low to mid nineties (91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 97). Oh, how I long for those days to return.
Score: 106
Putts: 37
Fairways: 4
Greens: 4
Penalties: 7
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