Just about put my first tee shot out of bounds. Played a provisional just in case, which I did put over the fence. Walked down to where my first ball was, and it was still in play by 10cm. Took a penalty drop for an unplayable ball. Tried to hit my third hard enough to get to the green. Topped it and it dribbled 75 meters down the fairway. Took out a wedge for my fourth and caught the ground, ended up just short of the green. Had no idea how the greens were running, so for my fifth shot (on a par 5) I tried to chip it close. It ran and ran past the hole. Three putts later I had my eight. Yee hah, what a start.
After the first 5 holes I had scored three points. Unbelievable, in such a bad way.
The 5th hole has a stream at the front of the tee block. I, like hundreds of others, stood on the tee and topped my ball straight into the far face of the stream. Ooops. Three off the tee. My partner Chris said "I can find that" and wandered across the bridge. The other two players teed off leaving me to tee off again. By this time Chris had parked his bag on the other side of the stream. I tee up my third shot, another topped shot, just clears the stream, hits Chris' bag and ricochets right into the trees. Hmmmm. I get over to where my ball is and there is a little gap between the trees in front of me. Take out a 5 iron for a 50 meter shot. Chip it low to the front of the green. Missed the trees but now lay two meters off the green for four shots. I had to sink the next shot if I wanted to score any points on the hole. Stepped up stroked the ball, got near the hole and curled away to the right. No points, how sad.
The sixth hole came under the heading 'miracle'. Drive into the trees, miraculous second through the trees and back out onto the fairway. Facing a two tier green, flag on the top tier at the back. Take out a wedge and scuff the shot, 30 meters short of the flag. Standing there over the ball thinking here comes another three putt. Stroke the ball, away it goes, online, tracking, tracking, just veers off, then takes the slope back to the hole, hits the pin and drops in. Absolute miracle putt, but I still took it and the three points that go with it. Second hardest hole on the course, no sweat par.... Sort of stuff that will get me back next week.
As can be seen in the card below I had my ups and downs. The 7th was another par then the 8th and 9th were a bit ordinary. My first nine gathered 12 points, 6 of which were scored on two holes.
On to the back nine where I scored much better than the front nine. It had warmed up a bit and I had been able to take off my heavy jacket and my swing got better. On the 10th I actually putted for birdie but my putt was too strong and went away past the hole, missed the one coming back for par and slunk off with a bogey. 11th was another bogey and was the best I could have done on the hole. The 12th I was quite chuffed with. Sliced my tee shot 30 meters to the right of the green with a tricky second shot. I played it beautifully, the ball landed exactly where I intended and rolled out to half a meter from the hole. Ecstatic. Tapped in the putt for par. I had now parred both the 1st and 2nd shot holes on the course. Very pleased with myself.
The rest of the nine was pretty ordinary, no points on the 17th, the only hole I didn't score on for that nine. Ended with 17 points which was an average number of points. My total of 29 points left me 24th out of 28 in the senior division. My playing partner Steve Wood was 28th out of 28. But he had an excuse. While we were on the 7th hole he let us know his brother Gary had died the previous day, the leukaemia he had had for ten years finally killing him. A sad loss for the club. The Wood family, father and sons, have been great servants of the club. My condolences to the family.
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