Stories from 2020 Golf Season

[dagolfer18]

Hello all! As promised, here is my thread for stories from my season. A few times a week, I will share stories from both practice and matches until early May, or mid May if we make states, at which point the stories will stop. I will allow this thread to be deleted around mid to late May, to allow for reflection from the season. I will also post my match scores on “What’d You Shoot Today”, but the match details will be here. Let’s kick this off with two stories:

1) This was from last week. I may have mentioned this somewhere else. We played a 2-man team, worst-shot scramble. My partner and I were about 40 yards out after our second shot on a par-4. My partner hit a dart right at the pin, and it landed on the side of the hole and bounced away. A near slam-dunk. Later, on the range, we were hitting 25-yard pitch shots to one of the flags, which had a cup under it. One of my shots landed in the hole on the fly, but then bounced out. Crazy shots.

2) This was from yesterday. We played five holes, 1-3 then 6 and 7. I was again up one on one of my teammates (the same teammate who I had the competition with in the fall) going into the last hole. He hit his onto the green and two-putted from about 30 feet. I also landed the green, but three-putted from about 50 feet. So we again ended in a tie.

Stories from my matches will begin next week, which will have two matches. Some weeks have one match, some have two.

[Piz]

I have one story from the 2020 golf season:  it's wet...really, really, wet.  Playing a golf shot, from the fairway, is akin to standing in a john boat and attempting to pick a ping pong ball off the surface of a pond.  

That being said...we had an excellent match last Sunday.  It went into OT and was finally resolved with a birdie on the 20th hole.

[dagolfer18]

26 minutes ago, Piz said:

I have one story from the 2020 golf season:  it's wet...really, really, wet.  Playing a golf shot, from the fairway, is akin to standing in a john boat and attempting to pick a ping pong ball off the surface of a pond.  

That being said...we had an excellent match last Sunday.  It went into OT and was finally resolved with a birdie on the 20th hole.

Who won?

[Piz]

1 hour ago, dagolfer18 said:

Who won?

Well...I did...but I was dormie after 16 and it felt more like an escape than a win.  

[AlDena]

My buddy and I played last week at an old haunt that has new carts. The new carts have GPS with a touch screen, blue tooth speakers, but no USB port to charge my phone. We were paired with a twosome, the younger of the two looked early 20's, and was clearly a scratch golfer. Despite little warmup, I played well, had several drives in the 240 range (average around 220), a string of 4 pars, followed by a bird, had made a change to how I grip the putter, and shot an 84, which included a bonehead triple on the 10th. I think I was inspired by playing with someone so good.

My buddy drove the cart. There are 'no cart' zones, like the parking lot, tees, being too close to the green, and various spots behind the greens or in the weeds. This is where the cart just stops, and will ONLY go slowly backwards until you are out of the forbidden zone. He was not playing well, and did not have many GIR's, if any. Cart trouble on every hole. 5th hole, he knocks it over the elevated green, into a small valley between our green and the 17th. Takes the cart there, and now he's stuck, and can't figure out how to get going again. Trying to back up a small hill to a maintenance road, he looked like someone trying to back their new boat into the lake, only to jackknife the trailer over and over again. Funny to watch, but I a little embarassed by the whole thing. I don't think the other twosome was too happy either. By the time he made it back, the 4-some behind us was on the our tee, where we hadn't teed off yet. We swapped the clubs on the cart after that, and I drove for the rest of the day.   

[dagolfer18]

Yesterday’s practice was interesting. We went and played holes 1-3, then hopped over to the adjacent 6th tee and played 6-9. On the par-3 3rd hole, after I hit my approach just right of the green, my teammate who was playing with me pulled his tee shot OB. Hitting another one, he duck-hooked it OB as well, but this time we heard glass. He had just landed his golf ball in somebody’s window. Walking down to the green, we were laughing nervously. Luckily, the people living in the house were good friends of his, and they were comforting him, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it.” He now has a nickname: Mr. Pane. It was a scary moment though.

Edited February 27, 2020 by dagolfer18

[dagolfer18]

First match is tomorrow! As I mentioned before, I will post my score both here and on “What’d You Shoot Today?”, but I will go into more detail here. Heading to the course in about 20 mins to practice, just to get back in rhythm, because I haven’t really hit a golf shot since Thursday.

Edited March 1, 2020 by dagolfer18

[dagolfer18]

First match in the books! The course was very wet, so we played a shorter set of tees, which were about 2850 yards, par 36. Final score: eight bogeys and a double for 46, in high winds. Hole-by-hole scoring and our team’s scoring at the end. Putting and long game really hurt today, but recovery kept my score semi-low. I made some good bogey saves from what could’ve been disastrous situations, which I’ve gotten better at. Putting was not exactly on point. I had a 50-footer for birdie, and I left it ten feet short. Not good at all. That hole was one of two three-jacks today, both after GIRs. The most surprising shot of the day was on our eighth hole, a shortish par-4 at 340 yards. Wind was directly in our face, probably 20mph. I hit a poorly struck 3W that took off towards the right side of the fairway. I said to one of my opponents, “I probably hit that 160 at best.” Nope. My ball was right next to the 200-yard marker. Topped the next shot, then knocked the next on the green and two-putted for bogey. We did okay as a team, as you’ll see below. 

Started on the par-3 ninth:

PAR: 3-4-3-4-4-5-4-4-5—36

SCORE: 4-5-4-5-6-6-5-5-6—46

Team scoring below. A total 174 for us (combine best 4 scores), second place behind a 169. A very solid start to our season, and we’re hoping to continue our run at our conference championship! 

[Bonvivant]

@dagolfer18, you may want to switch this to the blog side of the site if you are mostly going to cronicle your season piece by piece. I will be following either way, and hope your game sees improvement this year! Go get em Tiger!

[iacas]

8 hours ago, Bonvivant said:

@dagolfer18, you may want to switch this to the blog side of the site if you are mostly going to cronicle your season piece by piece. I will be following either way, and hope your game sees improvement this year! Go get em Tiger!

Yes. Good tip.

https://thesandtrap.com/blogs/

[dagolfer18]

As I mentioned in “What’d You Shoot Today?”, I shot a 49 in today’s home match, which was non-conference. Started +8 through 4, then went bogey-bogey-bogey-double-par. The last hole was interesting. After barely missing the fairway, I knocked a hybrid to just inside the 100. Walking up to my ball, I saw that all the coaches, and everyone who finished already (including three of my teammates), were watching. I thought, “Well, since I have a gallery, I’d better hit one stiff.” That’s exactly what I did. A nice smooth GW to about ten feet. Arguably my best shot of the day, the other possibility being a 40-footer for birdie on the third that I almost made. I wanted to finish the round off with a birdie, and I went after the putt, and certainly didn’t leave it short. I left myself with about a three-footer for par. I knew that I needed to make it to keep the score under 50. Knocked it dead center. IMO, even though it’s just one stroke, a 49 on the card looks a heck of a lot better than a 50. So a bad start, but a decent comeback. We ended up winning the match (my 49 wasn’t contributed). Our scores were 40-41-43-48 for a 172, and we won by six. For the first time in a while, there were no scores in the 30s, so our guy who shot 40 was the medalist. One weird thing about today: I went first on every tee. The reason being is that we were playing ready golf, and I was probably the fastest of the three of us.

My scorecard from today:

     PAR: 4-4-3-5-4-4-3-4-5—36

SCORE: 7-5-4-8-5-5-4-6-5—49

Edited March 5, 2020 by dagolfer18

[iacas]

I'm locking this topic. Please take them to the blog, as recommended.