Saturday, August 26, 2017

Cypress Lakes Golf Club.

Last weekend I had the good fortune to play as Paul Willner's guest at one of his home courses, Cypress Lakes Golf Club. I've used the putting green and the chipping area a few times since I've been here but this will be my first trip around the course. We were to go out around 10-ish but we were paired up with another twosome and got to go out a bit earlier, which may have been a bad idea. More on that later.

The first hole was simple enough, a straightaway and short par-4 then I tried to screw up with a semi-chunky 3-wood off the tee. My 7-iron to the green was good though and two putts gave me par. The second hole was a little more visually appealing :

The par-5 second hole
After a pretty decent drive down the right side I elected to take a shot at the green, over the water, with a 5-wood. I hit it solid but a shade left and ended up right on the edge of the trap. My stance was a little awkward but I was able to get to the ball without much issue. To my surprise, the ball jumped a little bit and ended up a bit long and left, leaving me a downhill putt for birdie. I grossly misjudged the speed of the putt and ripped it about 10 feet by the hole. I missed that also for what has to be a bad bogey. Taking four shots from where I was, bad stance or not, isn't very good.

I didn't get any better for the rest of the day, at least it didn't feel like it. I hit a decent drive on the par-4 third but my 6-iron approach was another one of those weakish leakers than I had avoided the last time I played. My 7-iron on the par-3 fourth did the same thing and found the bunker. I bogeyed both of those holes as my pitches and putts were good but not great. We then come to the fifth hole :

The view from the tee of the par-4 fifth
This is a cool little hole, especially now that I know that the water around the green actually comes down the right side of the fairway further that I thought. I hit my drive right and caught the bunker that you might just be able to see in the picture above. I'd say that was a break as the water isn't all that much further than that. The traps were damp but I had a clean lie. My 9-iron was solid, actually it was too solid as I went long. Another pitch seemingly defied gravity and failed to roll out down the hill, leaving me to miss another par putt. See a theme here?

I did manage to par the sixth hole, I think driver/wedge/two putts did the job. The seventh is a par-3, as shown below (I think, my memory today is sketchy at best):


This is where I could tell that things just weren't going according to plan. I hit the green, though I did pull the 7-iron a little left, leaving me about 30 feet or so for birdie. Now, the two guys we were playing with were playing from the tips as one of them was practicing for an upcoming qualifier of some sort. The problem was that he was having an awful day. His friend had no business playing from there at all. Regardless, with those two playing from a different set off tees from us made the play choppy at best, especially when they were constantly looking for balls and other stuff.

Anyway, once everyone was on/around the green I got ready to putt since I thought it was my turn. I go through my routine and just as I take my last look at the hole and pull the trigger I see a ball rolling up to the hole. I don't know whose ball it was and it doesn't matter, but it threw me off today. Normally, I'd just start over, no big deal. I could have been wrong in thinking I was away. However, the day was taking long enough with these guys and I just didn't want to take more time. So I tried to simply restart without stepping off and hit my putt too hard. Not horribly long, maybe 4 feet or so.

That wasn't the mistake. The mistake was feeling hurried and proceeding to hit the next putt as if I was taking a gimme. As I did that I realized that it was waaaaay too long for a gimme but I still didn't stop and missed the putt. Now, nothing says if I did things "right" that I would have made either putt, I know that. However, it bothered me that I didn't have the discipline to just play my own game and not worry about taking a extra few seconds, even if I felt we were taking enough time as it was. So, I marked down a bogey and moved on.

The par-5 eighth hole
I did bounce back and parred the par-5 eighth, shown above. I don't really remember it but I think I burned the edge of the hole for birdie on this one. I know I had a few putts miss that I thought I had made and something tells me this was one of them. Anyway, I bogeyed the par-4 ninth by simply hitting a bunch of average shots. My drive was right but not terrible. My wedge to the green was on line but just short of the green. The chip was also short and weak and the putt for par went wanting. With that I ended up with a 42 for the front nine despite hitting five greens. Needing 19 putts doesn't help.

Even making the turn took too long. We were going to go ahead without the other twosome (they said they were going to eat) but they pulled up to the tee just as we hit our drives so we waited for them. I don't think they would have cared but it just felt like it would have been a dick move to simply leave them like that.

I started off the back nine decently enough. The 10th is a par-5 that doglegs right with water in play down the left side in several places. I had a decent shot at birdie but could only give the hole a scare. The par-3 11th was a simple looking hole from what I recall. I hit another weak leaker and left myself with a fairly long chip across the green. I thought I hit the chip about perfect but the damn thing just kept creeping past the hole and ended up about 8 feet past. Naturally I missed the putt for par.

The 12th is a par-4 that seemed fairly simple as well. I hit my drive left and found a bunker. The ball was below my feet but was sitting clean and far enough from the lip to not give me an issue. I pulled the 9-iron a little but ended up about 15 feet left of the hole. Naturally the putt wasn't an easy one, being downhill and left-to-right. I didn't make it but I left myself a tap-in for par.

The came the 13th. Its a short par-4, maybe the traps making the hole seem like it had a slight dogleg left. Since the wind was in our face I decided to use driver instead of going with 3-wood. That wasn't the mistake. The mistake I made was I had forgotten my glove in the cart. I've been using a glove for a few weeks now and its become part of the routine. Well, I didn't want to go back for it and I decided to go ahead and take a swing.

Out of bounds right.

The club slipped, of course. The day was humid, I've been sweating pretty much the whole time and using a towel after every shot. Considering that was the very reason I decided to start wearing a glove again you'd think I'd know better. Maybe on a different day I would have but not on this day. Like before, I felt a little rushed... well, not rushed, but the timing of the foursome was awful. To me it felt like we were playing in two different twosomes, just playing the same hole at the same time.

Anyway, I went back for my glove and a new ball and promptly did almost the exact same thing. I was lucky enough that the second ball stayed in bounds. From there I hit what has to be one of the best shots of the day, hitting a 9-iron from an iffy lie about 20 feet past the pin on the green. I missed the chance at bogey and pretty much waved the white flag at that point, marking myself down for a double-bogey and moving on.

I played the par-5 14th hole fairly well overall, so it was a decent recovery from the mess on the previous hole. I went for the green in two and ended up in the greenside trap. It was a fairly long shot to the hole however and I left it about 20 feet short for my birdie putt. I missed that but made par. The 15th is a par-4 that was unusual due to the trees along the fairway. Its as if the hole was cut through a small forest or something. I hit my drive solid but into the group of trees left. I was lucky to even find a path between the trees to get back to the fairway. I then hit a slighty chunky 8-iron on the green and two-putt for another bogey.

On the 16th hole I hit my drive to the right but managed to get away with it. I then proceeded to hit another 7-iron to the right as I had been doing seemingly all day. At that point I was getting pretty annoyed with myself and I let the course know it with a vile word or two. The shot wasn't awful, I was on the fringe pin-high, but that feeling that I had regressed back to where I was a couple of weeks ago just irked me at that point. I've still hit 8 greens out of 16 holes so it wasn't all bad by any stretch. Perhaps I was expecting too much, I don't know. Anyway, I couldn't get up and down (again) and made bogey.

Maybe I've said this before but I actually like letting myself vent after a bad shot or whatever. I learned from my time playing poker that holding on to even a little bit of anger can just make things worse later. I prefer to let myself get angry, whether its with a choice word or two or maybe a quick slam of the ground with the club doesn't matter. The point is once I do that, I'm done. From that point I'm already looking forward to the next shot. Even on a day like this day, that was the only time I felt the need to do that. Sure, I probably said something after the drive out-of-bounds and other shots along the way, but this one time I just felt the need to really get it out of the system.

Did it work? Maybe. I came to the 17th tee and saw a cute little par-3, shown below :

The short par-3 17th hole
The shot required just a gap wedge on this day. I hit the green but again it wasn't a great shot. Two putts later gave me a par though so I couldn't really complain a whole lot. That brings us to the closing hole, the par-4 18th :

The look from the tee at the 18th hole
I think the hole was playing a little shorter than usual, either that or I hot my drive nearly 300 yards since I only had about 110 yards left into the green. Either way, the drive was probably the best one I hit all day, it actually had a little draw on it. I then finally hit an iron shot online and put my ball about 5 feet above the hole... a legitimate birdie opportunity! The putt was downhill, of course, but not horribly so, and it looked like it had a slight turn from right to left. Certainly doable.

I missed that one too.

I swore it had to go left. I could see where the water rolls off the green, I saw the spot there. I started the ball exactly where I wanted to, exactly where I thought I had to start it. Nope. In fact, I think the putt actually ended up going the other way, which still perplexes me now. Maybe I'm blind, maybe it was grain, I don't know because if I did know I'd have seen it and made the damn putt. But I didn't and ended up with a par for an 83.

Now, I realize that I'm not going to shoot 74 every time. To be honest, 83 feels about right for the way I thought I played. Surprisingly, it was the putter more than anything. I had 37 putts and I didn't make a single thing outside of a tap-in the entire day. I thought I made quite a few when I hit them but for whatever reason they failed to drop. I probably hit the ball about as well as I had when I was shooting 74 and 76 at other places, however here I found more trouble (out of bounds or trees) and didn't make those putts.

The course was fun, even if some of the holes could be considered a little ordinary. The track does have some interesting holes and everything outside of some of the bunkers was in good shape. I'll have to give it another go sometime soon and see if I can't manage a few of those holes a little better than I did on this round.

Sometime will not be this weekend, however. As I type this I'm holed up in my apartment while riding out the start of the weather event dubbed "Harvey". Where I am it won't be the winds that causes all the issues, it'll be the mega-fuckton of water that'll get dumped on us over the next week. Who knows when I'll get to play again.



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