The comeback..

[cougar978]

Yesterday, I had one of the worst front nines I've had all year. Started off C-blocking a 3-wood into a stand of pine trees - bogey. I left two kick-in birdies on the lip on the second and fourth holes, then things got interesting on five. I hit my tee shot so badly off the heel I thought I had cracked the shaft on my driver. It gets better - there's a big blind spot on the next hole where you can't see oncoming players, so as my tee shot flies a stand of trees, a cart drives right in front and my ball hit the path on the fly about 5 yards ahead of him - we didn't see them so we didn't yell 'fore' until about a second before the ball came down. I drove up and apologized, he said not to worry about it, my ball was up by the next teebox.

Now, I was playing a Titleist 3, and I found a Titleist 3 next to the teebox where I thought it skipped off the cart path and landed. From that spot, I had hit the ball so badly off the tee where I actually had a clean look at the green. I hit a wedge on and had about 15 ft for birdie. Now, I get to the green to mark my ball, and my sharpie marking on the ball wasn't there. Wrong ball. F***!. I picked up and declared myself out of the hole because my teammates were all putting for birdie and wrote myself down for double.

My drive on six (medium length par 5) was equally as bad, it felt as if I had either broken the shaft or caught another hosel rocket - the ball ended up traveling 290ish, but right behind a tree. I tried to scoot a 2-iron out, and got too much of it and it ran into a fairway bunker about 100 yds out - behind another tree, with a lip in the way. Left the third in the bunker, had to make a 10 footer for bogey.

Had a 180 degree lip-out for another bogey on 7, and then hit a good tee shot that hit a sprinkler head in the fairway, into a pond, bogey. Parred 9 for a 5-over 39. We lost all our buy-in money because everyone pretty much played like sh*t.

The next 18 (back nine plus 'extra nine' where the bets are doubled), I shot 67 and brought home $100 (it also turns out I was almost shanking my driver - the shaft was fine as I was nailing it off the tee on the extra nine - averaged at least 300 yards and hit 3 of 4 fairways on which I used it) - having to make a five-footer on the last hole to keep us out of a playoff on the extra nine.

While it's nice to make a comeback of that proportion, I am really concerned about my inconsistency in ball striking. It seems like all the practice and preparation I put in goes out the window when things start going the wrong direction - I know everyone's going to say 'that's golf', but in order for me to take the next step, I need to be shooting consistently in the low 70's (or God forbid, high 60's) to make some noise.

[RMD]

Years ago, while playing to a 12, I shot an ugly 46 on the front nine. I told my partners I was skipping the back and going home to nap. They convinced me to stay. I shot 33 on the back.