One of those days....

[RayG]

Needed to get out for a quick nine after suffering though a kidney stone Thursday & Friday. (This too shall pass... and it did thank goodness). Thought the fresh air and getting around would help. Apparently I was rewarded for my suffering... kinda. I missed EVERY fairway, but it was like that commercial with the dog moving the ball. Missing every fairway and winding up with an opening on 6 of the 9. FIR: 0 GIR: 6 Another stat was I was getting 20-30 more yards on the driver, which I suppose helped get to the open parts. Final hole was a prime example of how the day went. A Par 5, around 470, 480 or something. Into the wind- 15-20 mph with gusts quartering off the left. I hit a kind of pull hook that ran through the trees onto a nice clean lie in the rough of the parallel hole (#1). I get to the ball (230 to the center) and I have a tall tree about 30 yards ahead with some hanging braces, then slightly smaller trees along the fairway that I have to get over to get back to the fairway on 9. My friend came over and asked, "you punching back out?"... I looked, checked the wind, checked the lie, looked again... and said... (kind of jokingly) "nah- I'm gonna take the 5 wd, get it under these branches, have it rise up and catch the wind so it will drift back onto the fairway just to the left of the trap (60 yards from green) and have a little punch shot in..." "Okay- yeah right" Lined up and checked again, took the swing a damned if it didn't do EXACTLY what I wanted. And I KNEW it as soon as I hit it. I started jogging back to the 9th fairway, and watched fall like a dead duck 65 yds out. My buddy gave me "that look", because he's seen me do similar things in the past when I constantly tell them to "Just get it back in play" and keep the 8's off the card. But once in awhile you have to go for the gusto- especially after what I had been through and was just out enjoying myself and the company. I then punched it up below the hole and just missed the bird. didn't putt the best on the day, Thus the resulting 41.

[clearwaterms]

Nice round.

I have had similar experiences.  But, I have had the other hold true as well.

Last week, 5th hole, 390 yard par 4, trouble in the form of tree's on the left, and a dog leg right.  I hit a high fade, end up in the tree's on the left, about 200 from the green.  I look straight ahead, and I see that I can hit a low punch shot, and have open fairway.  If I go 50-150 yards, I will leave myself something between a 150 yard shot off the left rough, to a 50 yard shot from the right rough.  I take out the 4 iron, back of my stance, choke up to the edge of the grip, half back swing.

The club makes clean contact with the ball, in a kind of flyers lie and climbs RIGHT smack into the ONLY branch that was in the weigh, and it was probably 30 yards ahead and 15~20' in the air.  The ball hits the branch, goes straight up in the air, hits another tree and falls further left leaving me in deeper trouble than I was before.  I scrambled for a triple on that hole.  In hind sight, I probably could have hit a chocked down 3h, and left it to the right of the green for an up and down chance at par.