My first ever sanctioned golf tournament.

[kpaulhus]

Well, Im not a big blogger, but I would like to talk about my first tournament this past weekend. Im a member at Deercreek Country Club in Jacksonville, and I really like the "club" atmosphere. Playing with the same group of about 25-30 guys every Friday-Sunday is great. Getting to know everyone and seeing how their game stacks up against mine is fun.

Well, this past weekend was the Club's Fall Classic tournament. 2 man best ball teams playing Five 9 hole match play rounds. 1pt for winning the hole and .5 for a half. We had a little side pot where each team could buy their team for $100 a man ($200 per team). 1st place took home $780, 2nd got $420. I play to an 8 at my course, and my partner is a 6. We were seeded into the second flight and I was getting slammed all week because I have played poorly in the last month, and I was bringing out brand new irons for the tourney. Friday night we had dinner and a 9 hole skins practice round where 16 guys all tee'd off at the same time and there were carts everywhere. If you are not going to make par or better just pick up and go to the next tee box. It was a lot of fun and 16 guys played 9 in under 2.5 hours.

Saturday morning comes around and we have a match at 8:30, 11, and 2pm. First match we went out and just played lights out. We won the first match 6 to 3 and were waiting on the tee box for our next opponents. They were shocked to hear how well we played and how we beat one of the better teams in our flight. Round two, here we go. I sunk a great birdie on the first hole after my partner hit his tee shot OB. That was about it from there on out in that match. Ended up playing a record -3 9 holes and we won 6.5 to 2.5.In the morning I ended up shooting my lowest round ever, a +4, 74. One of the players in my flight is a well known sand bagger, and is a legit 3 or 4 handicap. Well, he is playing to an 8 in the tourney. It really pissed off a lot of the guys since his "high" rounds are posted when he plays by himself....and he "forgets" to post those 75's sometimes. I had a huge chip on my shoulder with this guy and told my partner we were going to kick their butts, since they were our last round on Sunday.

We ate lunch in the clubhouse and headed out to the back 9 to play our 3rd match of the day. This match didn't go our way. We hit fairways and greens, but they chipped in for birdie twice to steal holes. We were down 2pts with 2 to go and one guy on the other team stuck a beautiful 7 iron to 4 inches. I had a 8ft putt to halve the hole and didnt hit it hard enough. My ball stopped an inch from the heart of the cup. Talk about a crappy feeling. We ended up losing that match 6 to 3.

Ended the first day with 15.5 pts in second behind the sand bagger team who had 17.5pts.

Sunday was just not our day. We lost our first match 5.5 to 3.5. We had 4 birdies cut in half (3 were mine) they won the next 2 holes and we halved the last three holes (I missed a twisted slick downhill 12ft birdie putt and made the come back par putt from 5ft.) We played lights out, but they just played better. Going into the last round, against the 1st place team, we had a 1.5pt lead in second, and needed to beat these guys by 3.5 to win our flight. We ended up losing 4 to 5, and they actually won a hole using one of the sand baggers handicap strokes. As we turn our card in we hear the 3rd place team played lights out scoring 6.5 pts to end up overtaking us by 1.5.....oh well.

All in all I had a great time and it was cool having the wives and fellow golfers circled around the greens on Sunday cheering and clapping for us like a real tour event. I cant wait until my next tournament. Hopefully it will be stroke play so I can see how I really stack up against my club's best players.