Well, I played golf at Chapel Hill Golf Course on Sunday. It's a couse up near Mount Vernon, OH. It was my first time playing the course, so I wasn't sure what to expect. The golf carts were very nice—complete with digital scorecards & GPS. The GPS was definitely handy for a new course—since you always new the yardage to the pin. Using a cart on this course is almost a must, as the course is on very hilly terrain.
Anyway, I played the front nine pretty poorly, or more so I should say I played 3 holes on the front poorly. I played 3 holes on the front, +10 over par. However, this was mainly due to hitting some balls out of bounds and losing a ball or two to the course. Those penalty strokes add up quickly. I ended up +15 over on the front nine.
My game's been all over the place this year. A month or so ago I was playing extremely well. Most of my game was in sync and I was playing the best golf I've played in years. Then all of the sudden everything went down the tubes. In just nine holes, every aspect of my game went in the toliet. I went from doing everything well, to pretty much doing nothing well. I've been struggling to find my swing again for the past 3 weeks or so.
Well, even though my score was horrible on the front nine, minus my driver, I was starting to get my swing back. So even though I shot poorly, I was feeling a little better that my swing was coming back, I just knew it was a matter of being more consistent.
I started off that back with back-to-back pars in a row, followed by back-to-back bogeys. I then pared the the next two holes. At this point I was trying really hard to ignore the fact I was only +2 over on the back nine. I was trying to completely erase my score out of my mind. Still only +2 over on coming up to the 18th hole, I was very concerned. The 18th hole is very narrow and the green is uphill, surrounded by water.
My tee shot left me about 165 from the pin, but I was in the rough on an awkard lie—and still had to hit uphill to the green. This is when I really started thinking about only being +2 over par. All that kept going through my head was shanking the ball or putting it in the pond. I tried my best to calm down and relax before the shot.
I took my time over the ball and just went through my pre-swing agenda—butt out, back straight, head up, close the club head, slow back swing, don't decelerate, don't overswing. As I made contact with the ball, I knew I made good contact, but my shot was blind to the green—a hill in front of me prevented me from being able to see the green/pin. I had to run up to the fairway to watch the flight of the ball. I knew I made good contact with the ball, but I wasn't sure if my 6 iron was going to be enough to get to the hole. I ran up to the fairway, never taking my eye of the ball. I knew it was going to be close. Fortunately, the ball bounced down in the top part of the fringe and rolled up on the green.
Well the tough part was over, but I was still worried on the green. I had a pretty nasty swell to putt over—and I was far enough away without a good putt a 3 putt was not out of the equation. My best score on nine holes had been 39 up to this point, so I really didn't want to blow things at this point. After really studying the putt, I finally got over the ball and made my swing. The line was perfect—I just didn't put enough behind the ball. I ended up coming up about 6 inches short of holing the birdie. So, while I missed my chance to shoot +1 over, I didn't blow my +2 over score.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited about shooting +2 over on the back nine. After shooting +15 over on the front, there's no way I would have imagined I would still shoot under 90 for the day. The really sad part, is it was really just 3 holes that I really blew up on. However, I'm happy that my swing is started to come back to me.
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