A day after playing Century Pines, I payed a visit to Calerin Golf Club. I played the front nine with an interesting threesome. These guys were good buddies and took extreme pleasure in giving each other the gears. Had I been playing poorly, it was the kind of thing that might get on my nerves. Fortunately, I was playing reasonably well, so it had no effect on me. I shot 49 on the front, with six bogeys, two doubles, and a triple.
That doesn't sound so great, but I was actually hitting some nice shots. My drives on holes #3 and #4 were among my best, travelling a healthy distance and dead straight. Ironically, those were the two holes that produced double-bogey. On #3, I followed up my drive with a 4-iron that flared right into a large pond. The wrist roll that I used at my last round worked well on the drive, but not so well on the next shot. I simply didn't execute the roll well enough, leaving the club face a little open at impact. On #4, the problem was not full shots, but the fact that I 3-putt. The triple-bogey came on hole #6 after a drive into the woods and a poor shot from a greenside bunker, with the ball below my feet.
Where the wrist roll really helped was with my iron shots. Before employing this move, I could make reasonable contact with the ball, advance a predictable distance based on the club used, and finish in relative safety. However, only one out of every ten shots had that feeling of pure contact. With the wrist roll, a much greater percentage of shots give me that feeling. Contact is more crisp, while the ball flight is higher and much prettier to watch. It also seems to cut down on the number of mis-hits due to hitting the ball fat or thin. My approach shots on holes #8 and #9 come to mind as great examples. The former was with a 7-iron, but I hit it so pure that I flew the green. An 8-iron would have been enough to reach the back pin location. The latter was with the 8-iron.
Calerin is a 9-hole course, which you play twice if you want to complete a full round. A substantially different set of tees are used the second time around, so there's enough variety to keep things interesting. My playing partners had already played nine before I joined them, so I was on my own for my back nine. I've had some good streaks playing alone, so I was looking forward to it. Sure enough, the added focus really helped me get hot. I shot 42 on the back nine, with a birdie, two pars, five bogeys, and a double. The double only came about as a result of a 3-putt.
The birdie was on hole #14, a par-3 measuring 142 yards. I hit one of those pure 9-irons to the front of the green, then drained a 10-footer that found the bottom of the cup. The birdie was sandwiched between a couple of pars. Hole #13 is a par-5 that I played in textbook style. My drive found the left side of the fairway. I hit an easy 5-iron to the fairway centre, leaving 130 yards to the pin. I played to the fat of the green with pitching wedge, then lagged a putt and tapped in. Hole #15 was a satisfying par, since that was the same hole I made triple-bogey on the first time around.
A final score of 91 tied my second best of the year, so this was a good result.
Score: 91
Putts: 34
Fairways: 5
Greens: 3
Penalties: 2
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