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Warming up on the range was a struggle. I couldn't replicate what I was able to accomplish when I practiced on Thursday and it was concerning me. I felt fine overall, I didn't feel weak in my hands like I did on Saturday. I hit a couple of good drivers though and figured I'd have to work out the irons on the course since I didn't want to wear myself out hitting countless range balls. I went to the chipping green they had, which had gobs more practice balls all over the place. For some reason hitting a number of chips and pitches caused me to get a better feel for the irons. I can't explain it here, but it had to do with my setup and how everything looked to me in relation to where the ball appeared to be at address. With that in mind I headed to the putting green and eventually to the first tee.
My group consisted of myself and three other single golfers that the course had paired up to form the foursome. One guy played from the tips, which was a monstrous 7600 yards. My cartmate, Vic, was an accomplished senior player and he elected the Blue tees, which was about 6650 yards or so. I was originally going to play the Resort tees, which was a combo of the Blue and White tees (6250 yards) but when our fourth said he'd play the blues to save time I decided to join them. On one hand it was a mistake since I knew I wasn't feeling 100%, however in hindsight I felt that playing from that length really wasn't an issue. In fact, sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't do it more often.
In fact, I started off great with four straight fairway/green/2-putt pars. The only cloud on the entire thing was the fact that my elbow was really hurting me when I hit the ball. It wasn't like that on the range. I almost always feel something but its usually no more than a "I know its there" kinda thing. Not now. This was definitely more of a shockwave going through my forearm after contact. My only guess is that I might have waited too long between the range and the first tee and my body cooled down. I wonder if being under the weather might have contributed to it. Save for maybe two or three swings it really didn't cause any issues, any errors I would make would be simply due to a bad swing or execution.
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| The approach to the par-5 second |
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| The par-3 third |
I followed that up with a bogey and another double, the latter after hooking one in the water and later three-putting for a seven. With a bogey on the uphill and really long par-4 ninth I ended up with an outgoing 42. Kinda sucked to ruin such a nice start on what will turn out to be a pretty tough course but overall I was happy with the way I was hitting most of my shots, especially off the tee. My short game wasn't great and I never did get a good feel of the greens. This was most evident on the short par-4 tenth, where my sand wedge redeemed itself with a great shot to about 3 feet of the hole. My putter would have none of it though as I baby-pulled the knee-knocked and settled for par.
I then doubled the 11th but it wasn't due to being angry or dejected at my lost chance. I hit what felt like a strong drive down the left side of the fairway. However, said fairway elected to rocket my ball with a huge bounce to the left, sending it rolling even further left into the waste area. The problem with that came when I couldn't find the ball. The waste areas here are mostly open, kinda like unkept sand traps, but they do have some small scrub bushes and stuff. My ball must have found one and I never did see it again. Local rules call it a drop and a stroke penalty so I did just that. My next shot slid under the ball in the rough and was dumped in a real sand trap next to the green, which lead to the double bogey. Just one of those things, a bad break really. If I had prior course knowledge or the benefit of hindsight I probably would have hit 3-wood of the tee instead as I was well under 100 yards to the green after dropping. I probably also would have aimed a little more right since the fairway did open up on that side but we couldn't really tell from the tee. In fact, depth perception here was tricky. The entire group had trouble getting ourselves to trust yardages and such here.
About at this point is when I started running out of gas. My elbow would begin to hurt a bit more also since I didn't feel quite as strong as I did earlier. Surprisingly I managed to get through the round without hitting absolutely horrible shots. I lost a couple to the right off the tee but not dreadfully so, though one did led to another double bogey that could have been avoided with better wedge play on the recovery. I would actually consider my tee shot on the 16th to be my best of the day, anytime I have 7-iron into a green on a 430-yard par-4 is a time I'm going to be a happy guy. Too bad a three-putted again for a bogey.
I ended up shooting 85 for the day and was spent. The course was playing tough though, the greens weren't too fast but they befuddled the entire group all day as the ball just kinda kept rolling out a bit more than it looked like it would. No one really made much of anything to be honest, I know I didn't. The greens were also about as firm as I've played to date. I hit eight greens on the day but had three others that I "hit" but didn't hold. The last two were on the last two holes of the day, shown below :
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| The par-3 17th |
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| The approach on the par-5 closing hole |
The 18th was actually the shortest par-5 on the course, this one was "only" 520 yards. Like two others before it this one had a fairway that was split by a water hazard. The picture above is from where my ball was on the approach shot, I had crossed over the creek that was now leading up to the left of the green. I think I hit a wedge that was pin high and a bit right of the hole. However, while it did roll to the left as expected it also rolled off the back of the green and onto the fringe. I never did find the ball mark. At least I managed to finish with a par.
Now that I think of it, on the third hole I hit 6-iron hole-high and it ended up 20-25 feet past the pin. There was a ball mark just 3 inches left of the hole that I think was mine. Too bad I couldn't get that one to stop a little sooner, though I doubt I'd have made a shorter putt anyway, not the way I was going on this day. Anyway, very few shots stopped quickly on these greens. I had a few that did but the whole group had to deal with the same conditions, they didn't do much better.
The course was in really good shape, though I was surprised at how flat it was overall. Vic, who lives locally, told me that the play was really slow for the area and it clearly affected him. As I said, he is an accomplished player that still played in local tournaments and I could tell by the way he played. To be honest, I hope I hit it as well as he did when I get to his age, with I actually suspected was north of 70 from the way he talked about his history. We finished in five hours, which didn't help the elbow, and Vic seemed to not handle it too well. He said that normally a round takes about three-and-a-half, tops. Five was just irking him to death. Nice fella though.
Looking back, while I somewhat regretted playing the Blue tees I happy I did anyway. Even considering how I felt and how tough the course played that day (its rated by the SCGA at 72.1/131), I thought I held up fairly well. Some of the par-4s were loooong for a "regular" tee. Five of them were 400+ plus, including one that was 453! Shit, sometimes you'll play a course with a par-5 about that distance. The round won't count toward my handicap but it was technically a better round than last week at Bear Creek. Also, my short game seemed off the whole day, especially the putter. The greens got to me I guess, I couldn't gauge them at all. While I'm not sure I could have broken 80 I do think that 81-82 was certainly out there for me, which would have been solid.
I'm going to Phoenix for work later this week and then staying over the weekend to play twice out there. I'm a little nervous about how my elbow will feel though. I really didn't expect to have any trouble with it but instead it was an issue from the first shot to the last in regards to the pain. Like I said, I'm hoping it was just a combo of cooling off and being sick. I've iced it and used the heating pad I have a bit since then and its already feeling back to how it was on Thursday so I'm hoping it'll be fine. I'm not sure if I'll hit any balls this week, I might try it Wednesday and if I feel its an issue I'll just shut it down and hit dozens of pitch shots or something that doesn't require full contact. We'll see how it goes.
Oh, and to finish off the post here are a couple more pictures of the course that I took along the way :
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| The par-4 fourth hole from the tee. |
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| The view of the par-5 seventh from the fairway, where I hooked my 2nd shot into the water trying to get across the hazard to the split fairway on the other side. In hindsight I should have aimed further right, that tricky depth perception got me I think. |
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| The look from the tee on the 431-yard par-4 13th, a long dogleg right. |
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| This one is the 95-yard par-3 14th. Though it played to "only" 115 yards on this day that just made the rest of the course feel that much longer. |
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