Beautiful December golf day. Over 70 degrees. Played in short sleeve shirt and a light vest. Was sweating.
Teed off with 3 guys I didn't know. Two 30-somethings and another guy around my age. Good player. They were all playing from the blues, so I decided today was a good day to go for it myself, since the temps were not too cold.
The young guys bombed it, but my short game shined and was the great equalizer. I got up and down a fair number of times and on those of which I didn't, I was very close.
Though one of the younger guys was quite good with a great swing off the tee and with all his irons, he made way too many mistakes and his short game was not in the same league as the rest of his game. As a result, I think he was getting very frustrated as I continued to stick with him, hole after hole. By the 7th hole there was steam coming out of his ears and he kept mentioning my short game as if to say "It's a good thing you have such a good short game, because you have no chance against me off the tee." Had he actually said that out loud, I would have agreed with him.
The two young guys went in at the turn to get food or something (without mentioning anything to us), and never showed back up on the 10th tee. So our twosome just finally teed off without them. We finished the 10th, got to the 11th tee and saw the younger twosome tee off by themselves. We kept waiting on the group in front of us, so expected them to finally catch back up with us, but it seemed like they purposely did not. I think they just wanted to do their own thing. They seemed friendly enough throughout the first 4 or 5 holes, but by the 6th, the better of the two was getting crabby with himself. Tossed a few clubs after poor chips and just wasn't too happy. Myself and the other older guy continued to play solidly. All I could think was that we were frustrating him by our good play and his inability to get the ball in the hole after great drives and approach shots. On the par 3 6th, he hit his tee shot (probably with a 6 or 7 iron from 170 out to about 10 feet. He puffed up a bit after that. I was last to hit and put my 4H inside his to about 6 feet. Felt like I was getting in his head.
On the next hole when we drove up to the tees, the blues were all the back on the BLACK tee box. It was playing about 400 yards. I was worried I wouldn't make the forced carry I was so far back. He stepped up and hit a perfect 4 iron about 220 off the tee. I hit driver and ended up close to him. I then hit a 4 hybrid on the green about 10 yards past the pin. Got down in 2 for par. He came up short and bogied.
Made a great flop shot on 8 from the rough right of the green, to 2 feet to save par.
I finally lost a ball on par 5 9th, my first lost ball in 4 or 5 rounds. Hit a good drive and a good 2nd shot, but it ended in somewhat deep rough, just left of the fairway. 7i approach from there got too much rough and not enough ball. Caught the tree that it should have easily flown over with better contact, and ended up in the hazard. Had to take a penalty, but the drop rolled into deep rough. My mistake there. I should have gone back 20 yards further on line with the pin and dropped in the fairway, then hit a gap wedge. Instead, I dropped about 2 club lengths behind the hazard on shorter rough, but it rolled and sat down in deeper rough. Again, got too much rough and not enough ball and came up short of the green with my 60. Ended with double. Otherwise had a pretty decent front.
Was expecting to do better on the back, but didn't do even as well. Overall, though, considering that I was really pressing to play the blues, and that so many of the blue tees were quite far back today, I did okay.
CeeBee says:Nice round old man. P B Dye is in good shape but the fairways are just a tic below the conditions at WM. But still nice. Greens just as fast and undulated and if you miss can be a tough up and down. It is a challenge. My iron play needs some work but this once a week shit ain't helping.
12/13/15
CeeBee says: