Picking Up The Pieces

A blog by mcanadiens in General

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About this blog

After the permanent closure of my home golf courses, this is a blog about what direction I want to go in from here.

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Recognizing Blessings

It may have been a cold gray day yesterday afternoon, but I enjoyed my nine holes very much. The quick tour of the front nine with Ralph and Bob sure beats the hell out of watching my beleaguered fantasy football teams, but Sunday was just a bit better than usual. My driver finally cooperated. The normally recalcitrant 1W hit five fairways and narrowly missed a sixth with legitimately solid 250-yard drives. Have no idea where that's been all year, but better late than never. I finished wit

mcanadiens

December 14, 2020

How Stuff Has Turned Out

Following the Club Championship experience, I decided to ease off considerably. Golf really wasn't enjoyable. Too much time stomping around the "natural area" looking for another slice or pull. Even just the business of counting up the strokes, penalties and lost balls was mind-numbing. There just really wasn't a point. So after that July Sunday, it was time for a change. First, came two weeks off with no rounds or visits to the range. Then, I visited the range on a particular Thursda

mcanadiens

September 15, 2020

Club Championship - Round 2

The 5W plan started well Sunday morning, but stuff progressively got worse as we went along and the back nine was another train wreck. Kind of like yesterday I started decent with pars at 1 and 2 and scrapped my way to a 45 on the front. Resorting the 5W kept those balls in play on the front, but left some really long seconds. Some dodgy work with the wedge and few less close misses with the putter and it could have been better. But the back nine had two major blow-up holes and really not a

mcanadiens

July 19, 2020

Club Championship - Round 1

I started with a birdie and ended with birdie. .. In between was total, unrelenting horse shit. The whole plan this weekend was to hit the 3W off the tee. It seemed ok on the range in my warm up, I got away with a push on No.1 and made birdie with really solid 5W and 8I shots. Then everything fell apart. Went OB three times before I started hitting the 5W off the floor. Ended up with a 102. True to advertised, these guys who entered this Club Championship are definitely players. The bo

mcanadiens

July 18, 2020

Feeling Chicken

So if I'm going to sign up for the Miami Shores Club Championship, I got two days to do it. Between the new home course, Covid and other assorted lame excuses, my rounds played are way off from normal. I've gotten out a few times and met some of the guys. Most of them have been very nice. But ... playing in this thing sounds a bit scary right now. For one thing, I'm playing even worse that normal (as if normal wasn't bad enough). The driver has been removed from the bag now. I can keep

mcanadiens

July 14, 2020

Ralph and Bob

After missing them last weekend, I managed to track down Ralph and Bob Saturday. We played both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. A gregarious 70-year-old, Ralph was only a once in a while player, then he retired and became a full-time player. Like me, he's a bit of hack. That makes us a good pair in the shared misery sense if nothing else. His normal routine seems to be playing nine holes in the early afternoon, going home and coming back for another nine in the evening six days a week. As s

mcanadiens

June 1, 2020

My Money Is on Its Way, Now, Another Decision

An e-mail from the City of Dayton suggests I should be receiving my refund very soon. So that brings up a question. What do I do with it? The original plan, when a full slate of KHMA events was presumably going to occur, was to spend the cash for a combination of lessons, shoes and a driver. Well, we got the new shoes last Friday. Soon the golf budget will have the cash to buy the driver, but does blowing that money on a driver still make sense? It's almost June. I've got absolutely no

mcanadiens

May 28, 2020

A Brush With Minimal Competence

Between golf course closures and Covid, the whole business of hitting a golf ball solidly has suffered. Really any spring is a bit of starting over for me. In past years, I'd be grinding things out at Kittyhawk in late April and early May to put together some sort of workable swing by the time the summer started. Obviously, that's simply wasn't possible. The sporadic rounds I was able to play were chock full of miss hits and improvement has been slow to come. At about the same time th

mcanadiens

May 27, 2020

A Decision Made

Stopped by Miami Shores GC, Troy, OH yesterday evening, filled out the form and paid the money and now have my shiny yellow membership card. Once reassured that most of my money will be refunded by Dayton, Miami Shores was an obvious choice for all the reasons in my previous post, but I really did consider my options thoroughly. The thought of simply bouncing around to various courses instead seemed like a good idea for a moment. Playing new courses or ones I haven't seen in years sou

mcanadiens

May 22, 2020

The Leader In The Clubhouse

A visit to Miami Shores yesterday affirmed its position as the number 1 option. While selling me range balls, Club pro Kyler Booher confirmed for me that they are still selling their partial memberships. Doing the rough math, the pass justifies itself after the 25th round. A full membership would require 75 rounds before that would pay off. It remains a concern how often I'd be able to get out. Miami Shores was stem-to-stern again yesterday and Kyler said that only two tee times remain

mcanadiens

May 14, 2020