Breaking 80

[IceDave]

With the summer getting started here in Iceland and having posted around 4-5 rounds in the middle 80's, I started playing last Sunday with suppressed expectations. Always hoping but accepting the worst has been somehow my motto in the last 2-4 years. Consistency has been my enemy.

There are rounds when you start off bad that make you think that this is just not your day, but sometimes you grind out the will to make the change or have a lucky break or two to turn things around. Then there are rounds that start off blazing, with pars and birdies, and with me that kind of makes me nervous not to mess this beautiful thing up. Sundays round was neither of these. That said I started the first hole with the easiest of pars. Going to the second I went all the way with my 3 wood, landing it unsafely in the lava left side of the faiway. Don't know if anyone reading this has played golf on a course surrounded by lava, but is different from any other rock formation covering almost any unplayable lie. Chances are high that your ball will never be found. If moss doesn't devour it, some deep lava crack certainly will. And if you by chance find it, chances are high it will be unplayable. Well I found my ball this time and was able to chip it into the fairway, SW onto the green and converted the par. Over to the third, another easy par, and then the fourth again easy par. Slamming my drive on the difficult fifth (lava covers both the right and left rough on a terribly narrow fairway) I got one of my best drives of the summer. Worked my ball beautifully from left to right and landed 100 yards from the green in the middle of the short stuff. Easy par. Two more of those followed, and I was starting to wonder what was going on. On the eight I almost lost my ball but found it in deep grass, and somehow managed to hit it a mile high and get it onto the green for yet another par. I ended the front nine with a respectable bogey after a rather unimpressive drive. 1 over after 9!

The 10th at my home course is a rather long par 3, 180 meters most of the time, and this time the wind was coming in strong from the Atlantic Ocean, straight at my face. My 2 iron has really been getting me through some hard times last couple of summers, and this time it didn't let me down and I was able to convert the par. A missed birdie on the super cool 11th hole, had my spirits up for the 12 driver. I was going to drive the green on this easy par 4. I should have know better. I hit a bomber though, and with the wind at my back I thought I had the green all covered when the ball started fading half way up I knew I had done wrong. My ball was plugged in a deep bunker on the 10th green and almost unplayable. Double bogey was the result, and a bogey on the 13th had my feet firmly on the ground. A nice birdy on the easiest 14th got me on the straight track again and a tough pars on the next 2 kept me going. The 17th is a short but very difficult dogleg right to left par 4, with pot bunker dropped like M&M;'s all over the way. My strategy helped me here as I got the ball to the green in 2 and had a slick and tricky downhill sideways putt that I managed to hole. Second birdy! And I was now just 2 over par, could this really be happening?

The last hole is a long par 4 with a really difficult second shot, I decided to go the safe route here as I have at times been lucky to get away with a double on this one. Got to the fringe in two, and had 3 putts from there for a total of 74, 3 over par! My best round in more than a year, may there be many more like it!