Scant Pars at Hidden Lake

With a round scheduled for the New Course at Hidden Lake Golf Club, I consulted previous blog entries to recall what happened there during my last few visits. It turns out that my last seven rounds at Hidden Lake, which took place from 2010 – 2012, were all played on the Old Course. Bummer. From 2007 – 2009, however, I played five consecutive rounds on the New Course. It seems that I tend to favour one course over the other for a couple of years, before I finally get bored and switch things up. The good news is that my scores over those five rounds at the New Course were: 97, 93, 93, 93, 93. Heck, I'll take a 93 these days!

In fact, I ended up scoring 96, which isn't too bad. This round was a lot like my last one, in the sense that I largely avoided blowup holes, but also didn't make pars. To be precise, I did make one par. It came on hole #17, a 167-yard par-3. My tee shot came to rest two yards short of the green, but I lagged an uphill putt just past the hole and then made the comebacker. At the opposite end of the scale, I made one triple-bogey. It came on hole #1, after a weak drive off the heel of the club. It was early morning and the course was wet, making it hard to hit out of the rough. Besides these two holes, everything else was bogey or double. The final tally included 10 bogeys and 6 doubles.

My driving was pretty good, though I didn't hit many fairways. I hit what looked like perfect drives on holes #2 and #4, only to have my ball trickle into the rough by a couple of feet or less. In the lush, wet grass, it was a nightmare getting the ball out safely. That definitely cost me a couple of strokes. My best drives produced three consecutive fairways hit, on holes 10, 12, and 13. The drive on hole #12 was particularly good, travelling 275 yards and dead straight. My playing partners were impressed. Unfortunately, there were a couple of bad drives as well. Without realizing it, I tried to give those shots a little extra. Instead of going farther, they hooked left and were much, much shorter.

Iron play was also pretty good. When I mis-hit irons, I lost a little distance or veered slightly off target. There were really no disastrous iron shots that I can remember. One of the nicest irons shots came on hole #9, a 194-yard par-3 that is all carry over water and wetlands. I chose 4-iron and struck it just past flag-high, two feet off the left side of the green. I made as good a putt as I could from there, but still faced a 12-foot putt for par. It didn't drop, so I settled for bogey. There were other nice iron shots with more lofted clubs. An approach with the 7-iron on hole #18 comes to mind, as does an approach on #16 with the pitching wedge.

The real problem on this day was my pitching and chipping. On two occasions, I was trying to pitch the ball about 40 yards with the lob wedge, but caught it a bit thin and sent the ball skidding off the back of the green. On one occasion it cost me a stroke, while on the other it cost me two. That's because the ball ended up under a tree and I had no backswing whatsoever. I also duffed a few chips from right beside the green. On hole #3, this led to bogey, when par was looking possible. Same thing on holes #12 and #16. I can blame a spongy lie on hole #12, but I don't have an excuse for hole #16. All told, poor pitches and chips easily cost me half a dozen strokes.

Having said that, my putting was decent, so the short game was not all bad. Also, the one time I was in a greenside bunker, I got out safely and 2-putt for bogey. Interestingly, I had no penalty strokes for the entire round. That is rare indeed!

Score: 96
Putts: 36
Fairways: 3
Greens: 1
Penalties: 0