Played in a work-related golf tourament this weekend at the Legacy, and shot a 79. I haven't shot in the 70s for well over a year now, the closest I've come being an 80 at Francisco Grande earlier this year. Still, the 79 included a triple bogey and a quadruple bogey on the card, so really I played a bit better than the score indicates. The triple was a combination of several mistakes - it was a short 330yd par 4, with a trap that I can usually carry with my driver that's about 270 out. The wind was in my face when I was up, I didn't consider it, and I landed in the trap. Hit a poor shot out, a poor approach, and a 3-putt from 12 feet that gave me a 7 on the hole.
The quad was almost funny it was so bad. I don't know what happened on my drive exactly, but despite hitting my driver really well all day up to that point, I stuffed it into the desert 30 yards off the tee box on a par 5. At this point I should have just taken a drop, but for some reason I thought I could hit it out. I ended up hitting the tire on our golf cart, then the ball came back and lodged itself in a bush. So I got the penalty stroke for hitting the cart and the stroke for having to take an unplayable lie, meaning I was barely off the tee hitting 5, great. Hit my next shot solid but pulled, found it in the desert and had a good lie but was behind a tree, so I had to pitch out. Finally made it on in 7, and two-putted for a 9. >:-o. Ugh.
Other than that though, I played pretty well. I hit a lot of solid drives, and hit 10 greens in regulation (last few rounds for me have been more like 4-6). I even made some putts of decent length! Up until now, I've never really felt like I had a shot at making anything longer than 6-8 feet. Yesterday I made a few putts in that range for birdie or par, and a couple in the 10-20 foot range as well.
I feel like I learned a lot from a book I picked up at another golfer's suggestion, Golf is a Game of Confidence. I was able to apply quite a few of the points in the book to my game, and they seemed to help me. Here are some of them, paraphrased.
There were a few more, but that was most of it. Whenever I missed the green, I told myself that I know I can get up and down in two, because I have a good short game (as untrue as that may be some times!). Somehow that worked! I got up and down quite a few times, including twice out of the sand. The second time was on the 18th hole, a 490-yard par 5. I hit a great tee shot, the kind where you hit it and just pick up the tee, because you know it's long and down the middle. I was left with 165 to the center, but pushed my iron right into the sand. Hit my sand shot to 4 feet, and made my birdie putt for the 79, which I didn't know at the time thankfully.
Finally, I managed to win one of the closest to the pin contests with a shot that was maybe 8 feet from the hole. I can only imagine that nobody hit it closer because it was a bit windy in the morning, because I figured there was no way it would stand up. ;-)
My cubemate and one of his friends were in my cube discussing the problems with said friend's tv. Apparently it was about 14 months old, just two months out of warranty, and it broke. For some reason, the repair shop he normally went to said they simply couldn't fix Chinese-made tvs, and he was out of luck. But I found out he bought it at Costco - "take it back," I said. "They'll refund you 100% of your money."
"But it's out of warranty, and broken."
"Doesn't matter, they'll take it."
"If that works, I'm buying you a steak!"
That was yesterday. I come in to work this morning, and there's a cooler with my steak in it. :-D Getting just a year out of a tv is pretty bad, especially a CRT. Even worse when a shop says it can't be fixed. Hooray for the Customer Satisfaction policy!
Related to Costco, I'm glad they realize that Costco-nerds like me exist. I knew you could order checks at a pretty good price through Costco.com, but I found out from their magazine that one of the patterns you can choose is actually a set of pictures of Costco warehouses from around the country! *click* Ordered! :-P
Played at Orange Tree Golf Resort on Sunday, actually had a mostly decent round. The course seemed to be in good shape, though the greens were often a bit on the dry side despite the rain we had been having.
Only a couple highlights to the round - one was on the 2nd hole, a par 5. My drive left me about 220 yards out and with a reasonable lie in the rough, and I hit it perfect, right on the green. Two-putt for birdie.
The other highlight was actual several shots, a string of probably the three best gap wedges I've ever hit. Starting on the 8th hole, I hit a good drive to about 125 out, hit my gap wedge to 5 feet or so, and make the birdie putt. On the 9th, after unfortunately fatting my 7-iron into the water, I took a drop at my gap wedge distance, hit it to 8 feet, made the bogey putt. Then on 10 a good drive left me with a gap wedge again, and this time I put it to 2 feet and tapped in for another birdie.
After that it was all downhill, six bogeys and a double on the back nine, and I shot 40/43 for an 83. Not too bad though. My number of greens in regulation seems to slowly be going up, which I've found is what I really need to shoot the better scores (well, that or a much better short game). Looking back at some old scorecards, I used to actually hit more greens than I remember. These days I've been getting maybe 3-5 GIRs in a round, which isn't any good. Then if I could just start putting, I'd really have something!