I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that my handicap factor jumped up to 18.3 after my latest round of golf. It's not that I had a poor round, mind you. It's just that a terrific round from earlier in the year came off my scoring record. A mid-June round of 86 at Bradford Highlands has been replaced by my most recent round of 93 at Ussher's Creek. The good news is that I played very well at the Legends on the Niagara course. It was my first return to Legends after opening the season there on the Battlefield course.
I played this round by myself on a gorgeous sunny afternoon. The only people I encountered on the course were a couple who drove up behind me on the tenth tee, looking to start their round. I was enjoying the solitude, so I told them I was teeing off and would soon be out of their way. Perhaps because I was playing alone, and not waiting on or rushing through other players, my round was incredibly focused. It's not surprising, really – I play best when I'm thinking about elements of the golf game, not when I'm making small talk or helping other people find their balls, for example.
A big contributor to my success during this round was my driving. I hit 9 of 14 fairways by focusing on a good shoulder turn and the right tempo. My natural inclination is to rotate very little around the spine and to compensate for this by activating the arms. So I told myself to give that little extra spine rotation and to keep the arms relatively quiet. Of course, tempo also has to be right, so that was also part of my swing thought. I did not concern myself at all with distance. I just wanted to hit the ball straight and whatever distance it travelled, was the distance it went. I didn't hit any deep bombs with this approach, but a couple times when I pulled the ball slightly left of target, it stayed in the fairway because it wasn't travelling as far.
My irons weren't as consistent as the driver, but crucially, whenever I made a mistake, I never followed up with another. Hole #3 is a perfect example. This is a par-3 that was playing 140 yards over the creek. The creek winds along the left side of the green, so you definitely don't want to pull the ball as a right-hander. I had too many thoughts as I tried to hit a cut shot, and ended up squirting a shot short and to the right, way short of the green. I composed myself and hit a great lob wedge out of some gnarly grass to reach the green. When the irons were working a little better, I wasn't necessarily hitting greens, but I was somewhere in the vicinity of my target. I can work with those shots – it's the wild ones that are problematic. Finally, when the irons were on, is when the game truly got fun. On hole #7, a 140-yard par-3 over a large pond, I struck a pure 9-iron that cracked off the club face, launched high toward the flag and landed softly in birdie range.
I also had some really excellent game management. On the front nine, there were two holes where I took no chances whatsoever. Holes #6 and #9 are the hardest of the bunch. It's so easy to make mistakes on these holes and explode for a big number. On hole #6, the danger is a huge lake along the entire left side. If you avoid it on your tee shot, you still have to face it on your approach. I drove my ball to the fescue on the right, but was okay with that, since I could work from there without taking a penalty. On hole #9, the danger is Ussher's Creek, which fronts the green and angles in such a way that it is always in play. I striped my drive down the fairway and positioned my second shot perfectly to give me a good angle over the creek.
I continued the wise game management over the back nine. On hole #10, I hit a straight drive, but was far from the green to approach it with my second shot. I could carry that distance, but accuracy suffers, so I opted to punch the ball to a closer position where I could attack the green with confidence. Because of this approach I made a nice bogey.
For the whole round, there were really only three shots that I was truly unhappy with. One was the iron off the tee on hole #3, which I already described. The second was a duffed pitch attempt on hole #11, right after I had hit an amazing approach with the 8-iron that bounced off the back of the green. The green was falling away from me and I tried to be too delicate. The last shot I was unhappy with was my tee shot on hole #18. This is a hard par-4, but the difficulty is not at all in the tee shot. Nevertheless, I always seem to push one way right on this hole. It resulted in my only penalty stroke of the day.
If there was one other slight weakness, it was my putting. I had four 3-putts and three of those came after hitting a green in regulation. In most cases, my first putt came up just a little short, leaving a very uncertain par putt. Some bogeys are good; 3-putt bogeys are never good.
Score: 93
Putts: 37
Fairways: 9
Greens: 4
Penalties: 1
No comments:
Post a Comment