I choked away the club championship

[edhalsim]

This weekend was our club championship.  Two rounds stroke play over two days, flighted by handicap.  Day one I put on a clinic and shot 69 net to lead by one.  Day two my swing isn't as good, but I manage to get the ball in the hole.  I'm playing with the guy who's in second in the last group.  Coming to 15 I'm one down.  I drain a 20' birdie putt to tie the match.  On 16 I have another 20 footer for birdie to take the outright lead after he bogeys.  I barely miss the birdie and then proceed to miss a 3 footer coming back so now we're still all square.  At this point my mind starts to unravel and I get down on myself and proceed to hit my next drive nearly OB.  He makes another bogey and I have another 3 footer for bogey, which I also miss and take double so I'm one back with one to play.

On 18, a par 5 with water guarding the green, after a good drive I'm going to lay up and try to make a four with my wedge and putter.  There is a small group of trees near the layout area, but there's 40 yards of fairway surrounding the trees on all sides.  I hit my layup shot and it clips the trees on the way down;  not a solid whack, just brushed some branches.  No problem I thought, but when I went to hit my third we couldn't find the ball!  It had to have stuck in the trees! Never had that happen to me before.  I had to go back and re-hit and wound up taking a triple.

Bottom line I lost six shots over the last three holes.  On the bright side I did manage to keep pretty good control over my head for 33 holes.

- Ed.

[vangator]

Wow. I feel for you. I've never been in a position to experience that, so I don't know how I'd react. Next time, start drinking at the start of the back nine and you'll have a good excuse. :-)

[Patch]

Just some poor luck to be sure. Main thing is to make sure you learned something, and file it away for use at a later date.

[DaveP043]

Hey, you played great one day, and pretty good overall on the second.  I can understand that you're bummed over missing a couple of make-able putts, but the lost ball was just bad luck, from the sounds of it.  Like @Patch says, learn from your experience, you'll probably perform better next time you're in that kind of situation.

[mchepp]

If you play enough golf this will happen from time to time. Biggest thing is to learn from it. Look for areas to improve. Like was your pre shot routine solid throughout? Did you find yourself rushing? Were you trusting yourself.

Sounds like you also got a little unlucky. That is a bummer but can also happen. I like to think about it like the golf gods were evening things out. Maybe earlier in the round you got lucky and although the timing was bad, this is just where it evened out.

Learn and improve for the next time.

[DrvFrShow]

That stuff has happened to pros.

[Psyber]

DJ wouldn't mind having a drink with you haha

[Big C]

Man, I sympathize. I did the same thing this year in my club championship, and posted about the experience in the "Member Tournament Thread." Thanks for coming on to share your experience.

I'm convinced that the golf gods require you to lose in devastating fashion at least once or twice before they deem you ready to win a big tournament. So the way I see it, you and I have now been through the fire and are ready to take home the trophy next year!

[Kenny Lee]

Don't beat yourself up man. It takes guts to get out there and compete.

And even more guts to post about a bad finish.

I'd be your partner any day.

Helluva job shooting 69 on the first day.