mega golf-my-face-off day. kind of a mini one day vacation...

Drove about 45 mins south (out of the hell pit of columbia) to Hillcrest. We had rain checks for 18 holes w/ cart. The plan was to play 18, then other dudes meet up with us after lunch for second round. The heat wave has hit and it was supposedly 108* at home but only 100* at the golf course at the hottest part of the day. Turns out we had enough time to get an extra 9 in between rounds...

morning: from the middles 49/46 (penalty city)
lunch nine: 42 (from the backs)
after lunch: 40/47 (from the backs)

gpickin wrote:

I have other ones in the valley, but its the only HILLY one in the valley. There are lots of other good courses around, you're right. Courses around me according to OOB, I have played 6 of the 10, 3 are private and haven't been invited yet, 1 shut down. I'm going to break out, but the other courses are 60 mins plus drive. Sycamore is nice, but its still 50 mins to get there. I aim to play a few at the beach next week on vacation. I gotta hit up my country club friends to get into the other courses.

you should at least get up to Lake Isabella. It's beautiful up there. Visalia seems to have a ton of courses and doesn't seem more than an hour out.

They're on my list.
Time is tight these days but i'm making my buclket list

2 scrambles in the past 2 weeks for me. I like scrambles when i am playing regular rounds but seems scrambles are all i have been playing the past 2 years. Dont get me wrong, out of the office golfing free drinks golf and food is nice but miss scoring and playing my own ball.

Regardless i kicked ass in our foursome. One of the guys i played with likes to track whose ball we use for each shot and i won both scrambles, 1st only by 3 shots and 2nd by i dont know how many stopped keeping track after i ran away with it. I played with some poor golfers to say the least.

I am killing the ball off the tee averaging atleast 250+ per drive and keeping it in play. My short game is still rusty cant make a putt for shit and chips are short or long cant get distance control down.
I hit a eagle on the fly from about 75 yards with a SW! You could see the indentation where the ball hit the cup and slam dunked in! i couldn't believe it!

45/41

12 beers

95 degrees plus...

I missed 3 bird by 6" total....

guzzlingil wrote:

45/41 12 beers 95 degrees plus... I missed 3 bird by 6" total....

That's a lot of beer. In a way I am jealous--if I ever drank that much over 18 holes I'd have to be carried off the course.

Whats more impressive is he shot a 45/41 with 12 beers. mine woulda been more like 45/61 being so f'd up on the back 9.

Got out yesterday after a nice t-strom rolled through, course was nice and soft. I really putt so much better on slower greens. I shot an 84 with no penalites so that is always good. I am officially in love with my driver (Taylormade Tour Burner Stiff 10.5) I might have had the best driving day of my life averaging even on the wet course 240+ drives with 64% FW's hit. I hit one pull and one slice on back-to-back holes then hit 3 straight FW's I was working a nice fade (not slice, maybe a 5-10 yard fade) the other misses were barely off the FW. Missed most of my putts short b/c of the slow greens but only by 1-2 inches it was killing me. Too many missed greens (16.7% GIR) to score well but it was a nice round. Fucking 3-putted the 18th hole and that left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't renew my sky caddie subscription yet this year and it really sucks not knowing my yardages. One Hole i thought i was about 150+ and it really was just over 100yds and i sailed the flag by 35 yards atleast. Cant wait to get out again!

Went out friday on my day off and decided to get a round of golf in. Played with a flock of gentleman who were right around the 80 mark. they played gold, i played blacks. It was a long day anyway as we were behind not one but two wedding parties. Shot a very exciting 72, 39/33 which is 2 over. It could have just as easily been even par were it not for a double on number 12.

Bad shot out of the bunker on 12 left me in a collection area and a tough 3 putt. Boo. I feel like my swing is back to normal again, but of course whenever i feel like that the next round is horrible. We'll see how it goes.

How did the senior players do? Did it bother you that they played forward tees? Did it help them reach some of the longer 3s, 4s and 5s? You may be able to help people understand why playing from the correct tees is helpful and not an abuse of the so called correct way to play the game.

joe jones wrote:

How did the senior players do? Did it bother you that they played forward tees? Did it help them reach some of the longer 3s, 4s and 5s? You may be able to help people understand why playing from the correct tees is helpful and not an abuse of the so called correct way to play the game.

Nobody broke 85, but i'll have to look at the cards again. they were playing handicap and i'm not sure if they had written down the actual strokes or minus HC strokes. Either way they did phenomenal in my eyes. The guys that were in my group didn't hit it very far, but they were relatively straight. A few duffs here and there. I had a couple myself. It was really refreshing to see the multitude of swings and stances. They all worked for RCA back in the day. I wish i would have gotten a picture or something. I think i'm going to look them up over this weekend because i have 3 days off in the middle of the week for the holiday.

as far as the golds helping them, i would say definitely. Still, the only par 3 that was reached was number 12. 3 of us ended up in the trap and one guy trundled one up on the green. That being said, i did play the back tees on the course and it didn't really slow anything down. It actually evened us out for the most part. There was one of the younger guys who was hitting it pretty well. even when i tagged a shot on some of the holes, he was only maybe 5 yards behind me on the drive. Different tees really need to be used. I think anybody would benefit from heading up at least one.

birdieXris wrote:

It was a long day anyway as we were behind not one but two wedding parties.

? - what does that mean? bunch of groomsmen playing golf before the wedding? nice bounceback from your last round, btw.

Thanks for the feedback.You were fortunate to get involved with some fellas that probably played pretty well in their day. These guys sound a lot like some of the folks I play with. Some are very serious and obey most but not all of the rules. Some play hit and giggle and I think just use golf as an excuse to get out of the house. As a rule, gimme's are anything within 18" of the cup. Our mens club players have a piece of tape on the putter to use for measuring if they want to take a gimme. Not all of them do but nobody frowns if you do. . We allow some of the octogenarians and women to use a set of green tees which are placed at the edge of the first cut. See Grandpa's posting about this system.None of this is applicable during sanctioned events.

Duke of Hazards wrote:

birdieXris wrote: It was a long day anyway as we were behind not one but two wedding parties. ? - what does that mean? bunch of groomsmen playing golf before the wedding? nice bounceback from your last round, btw.

Yea basically. Wedding party and guests. They were playing a scramble.... I think. All I know is if you're playing a scramble and your best shot is behind trees on someone else's hole, you have problems. We were 30 minutes late to tee off because It took the second group 40 minutes to play the first hole. Haha.

I just witnessed the most unbelievable round of putting I ever saw. It was my own 2 over par 73, one off my personal best and lowest since a year ago when I shot the same score. Did not hit it very well all day, in fact the club felt weird in the hands and a few mishits were pretty heinous especially off the tee. The putting was just unreal though.

I got to the course early for once and actually practiced putting for about eight minutes. Over this year I think my stroke had deteriorated, way too long, too decelerating. In my practice I made a conscious effort to make the shortest stroke possible for every putt which means a quick aggressive thru swing. Which is way better than a long, lazy, tentative, don't hurt me kind of stroke which is what I had been putting with, let's face it.

Managed to take the new feel to the course and immediately saw some results so I was able to trust it. Also on the first green I made a pledge to hit every putt today without fear, something that had crept into my putting game. Somehow it all clicked. 26 putts is two off my record but numbers aside today was the best putting I've ever seen. Six seven eight footers weren't just going in, they rattled off the back of the cup. Lag putts scared the hole again and again. On the last green I had eight foot slicer with 18" of break for par--what else? dead center. I had to LOL when it dropped. Surreal round. Usually I would be elated by a 73 but today I was more like dumbfounded.