April 29, 4:00 pm
Light rain, calm winds
This was going to be my birthday round to myself. Sure, last year it was Whistling Straits, but we’re on a tighter budget this year.
It happens.
I went into the pro shop to get out as a single, walking, and there were three yahoos ahead of me; mid-20s, backwards baseball caps, looking to get out, too.
The nice guy in the pro shop, Jeff (I have no idea what is name is, but I’ll just call him Jeff), was looking at the radar map on weather.com, and explaining clearly that THERE ARE NO REFUNDS OR RAIN CHECKS ONCE YOU TEE OFF.
Now, for those of you unfamiliar with such things, this is golf pro shop talk for “the skies are about to open on biblical proportions.”
The yahoos were seemingly okay with the news, and I was overjoyed. (It’s one of my not-so-secret loves, playing golf in inclement weather. [Aside: is there such thing as ‘clement’ weather?] The inner, child-like side of me likes to play make-believe, and playing golf in wind and rain makes it easy to pretend you’re on the windswept links at Portmarnock or Ballyliffin. Child-like? Or childish? You decide.)
Anyway, I decided to let the yahoos tee off and play all of the first hole before teeing off, so there would be a gap between them and self.
Frequently at RiverBend (and, from what I’ve seen from other golf course/club websites) it seems like golf is not the prime function. Of the golf club. There are weddings, receptions, family reunions, work parties . . . half the time I’m there, there seems to be a wedding reception or family reunion: uncomfortably well-dressed men standing out on the veranda, overlooking the first hole and practice putting green, ostensibly watching the little kids who—also uncomfortably well-dressed, except for the small girls who like dressing like princesses—cavort around on the beautiful bentgrass tee and fairway.
The men are usually smoking cigars.
I went to the practice green with a couple of balls, just to work on my putting, as I do before every round. (Also, this allowed the aforementioned yahoos to get through 1.) I could feel about four sets of eyes on me from the balcony: frustrated golfers, brought to this family reception or wedding reunion, jealous out of their minds that I had freed myself from the shackles of modern society long enough to walk nine.
It’s nothing, I’m sure, like playing with a gallery, and for the life of me, I don’t know how the Ams in Pro-Ams can take back the clubhead on the first tee, with 1,000 interested and critical eyes on them. But putting with people watching is kind of like walking across a quiet, crowded room when you know everyone’s watching. It’s just walking. One foot in front of the other. But the very process becomes odd and mechanical when there’s an audience.
To my great pleasure, I starting sinking putts with a zen-like purity. Short putts went straight in the middle. Long putts went in or got tap-in close, and giant lags were ending up inside the leather. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help peeking up to the veranda out of the corner of my eye (I pretended I was watching a pair of Canadian Geese—with which RiverBend is overrun—come in for a landing) and was gratified to see the audience was respectful of my mad putting skillz. That’s a good feeling.
Just before teeing off, I kicked a couple of balls into the longer grass about 10-15 feet off the green, and practiced my long 8-iron bump-and-run chip shots. (The idea is to use a moderately-lofted club, as opposed to a wedge, and just get the ball a couple of inches off the ground over the long grass that would slow it down, and have it land on the green and start rolling like a putt.)
The second chip I hit checked perfectly on the green and rolled about 45 feet, directly into the cup. Jeff had come out of the pro shop to check the skies, and evidently was watching me chip. He saw that one and cheered down to me for the great shot. I smiled up at him, but played it cool, like 60 foot chips from off the green routinely go in. No big deal.
I glanced down the fairway, and the yahoos were replacing the pin at one and headed to the second tee.
Go time.
Hole No. 1. 315 Yards. Par 4.
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| Looking in to the first green, from the correct side of the fairway |
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| The bunker sand. Not your typical American course |
So, in accordance with the prophecy, I pulled the 4H way left instead. Rough, 160 yards in. I hit it about 160, had 160 left to go, so naturally hit another 4H. caught it fat, and went into the bunker short right. (Guess I was lucky it didn’t go into the lake.) Sand wedge over the green left me chipping from behind the green, downhill, for par.
Not the start I had been hoping for.
I hit a very thoughtful EW chip, rolling the ball down the hill to 3 feet. A short putt for a bogey. Not ideal, but could be worse.
Then I missed the putt.
Two over after one very short, easy hole.
Deef Breaf.
Hole No. 2. 365 yards. Par 4.
Mentally regrouping on the second tee, I thought about the gameplan. Keep this one in play. Get back a stroke here, and I’ll be back on track. No damage.
Nice smooth 5-w, slow backswing, and a nice high tee shot, left-center of the fairway, just over the crest of the hill. Not perfect, but not far from it.
Second shot, 175 yards from a wet fairway, uphill. Smooth 5H. Put a great swing on it, slow and smooth. Beautiful shot. On the green. Pin-high. Beautiful.
First putt 18 feet. Hit a nice lag, on the wet green, that cozied right up to the pin. 6” later, in for a par.
A very nice recovery hole after the first. Back on tract. Two over after two.
Hole No. 3. 481 yards. Par 5.
Feeling good after the second hole, I had a nice feeling on the third tee. This hole, a long one, used to intimidate me. No dogleg, so you can see the flagstick from the tee, and it looks SO far away. I just want to kill the ball. And what happens when I want to kill the ball? I hook. Into the trees, and then I’m dead meat. I took another deep breath, teed it up high, and put a nice, smooth, slow backswing on the driver, with a pause at the top.
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| Mother duck, and babies, in the pond off the third tee. |
Walking down the fairway after the drive, my phone buzzed. A text from Obie, my erstwhile best friend, with whom I haven’t communicated in a couple of years. We kind of lost touch (I lost touch), and then with the recent changes in my life, haven’t gotten back in touch. He had left me a message a day before, and I finally resolved, after all this time, to write him, to get back in touch. I was going to do that around my birthday (a couple of days off). But now he’s texting me. So, after a couple of years of silence, I responded. Not much, just ‘thanks for not giving up on me.’
But it felt good. That’s been hanging over me for months, years. It felt good to be in touch.
Back to golf.
It wasn’t a bomb, but a good drive. Into the fairway. Absolutely an opportunity from there. Did the exact same swing with the 5W. long, smooth, slow easy swing. Another great shot, in the fairway, about 110 yards out. Two nice shots, back to back. Maybe my eased conscience was helping.
I pulled the 9i for my third, and took a perfect, dollar-bill-sized divot. The ball flew high and straight to the green. After a fairway hit, I had a GIR to go with it. 18 feet below the hole, I hit another great long lag putt, leaving less than a foot for a par. I took my time this time, knocked it in, and had back-to-back pars. After a tough first hole, I really locked it up. I felt good about that, because one of my fears with this 40-40-40 project was that I would shoot a big number early, and mentally deflate and get myself out of it, and then be out of it for the round. The goal is to shoot +4 over the course of a round. I could shoot +4 on the first hole and par my way in and get the score. Hell, I could shoot +12 on the first and birdie in and get it. (Unlikely).
So, it was nice to see that I could buckle down and get it back after putting up a big number.
Hole No. 4. 270 yards. Par 4.
This is the hole I honestly think I have a good shot to birdie. But I realize something about myself: on the loonnng par-5 third hole, it’s so long I rear back and try to kill it. And then on the short par-4 fourth, it’s so SHORT I rear back and try to kill it. In both cases, I would be better served to swing easy and let the club do the work.
DAH!
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| Second shot on No. 4. Play it safe! |
Anyway, I put too big a hit on my tee shot and (say it with me now), hooked it to the left. Trees. I was almost directly stymied by a good-sized trunk. Only 120 or so yards off the green, there was about a 2” gap I could try to punch through with a knock-down 7-iron threaded the eye of a needle to try to run it up to the front. Not a high-percentage shot. I addressed, waggled and . . . thought better of it.
I made a much smarter chip out to the fairway, leaving myself a clear shot, 85 yards short.
I hit an 8i bump-and-run, a shot I’m still working on, onto the green, pin-high but about 15 feel below the hole. Again, I made a good run at it, but it never had a chance, and I rolled in the 3’ follow-up for a bogey. Disappointing, because that should be no worse than a par hole, but maybe I learned a lesson there.
+3 after four holes.
Hole No. 5. 125 yards. Par 3.
Easy 7-iron. Easy 7-iron. Easy 7-iron.
MASSIVE TOO-HARD SWING I’M GOING TO KILL THAT BALL!
Just to mix things up and keep things fresh, my desire to kill the ball on hole number 5 resulted in a flare push to the right. Pin-high, but off the green 10 yards to the right, and with 40 feet to work with on top of that.
Deep breath, read the green as if for a putt, and a nice smooth EW chip that rolled down to three feet. Very nice.
Knocked that bad boy in for a par.
+3 through 5 holes. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I had an outside shot at 40. In only my second attempt.
Hole no. 6. 340 yards. Par 4.
Once again to my first nemesis hole. A hole that should be cake for me, with my draw, but which somehow seems to foil me every time.
I tried to put a smooth driver on it, using my old, closed stance (which generally produces a draw) and – what do you know? A low, running hook. Not a high, towering draw, but the ball moved right-to-left and settled just a pace or two from the white aiming stake in the middle of the fairway, 150 yards out.
I’ll take it.
I tried to muscle a 7-iron up there onto the front of the green; a 7H may have been too much, and with a back-to-front slope, I didn’t want to be above the hole. (It’s easier to putt uphill than downhill; you never want to leave your ball above the hole, if it can be avoided.)
It was a lovely 7-iron, but unfortunately a tad short; 1 pace off the green in the fringe. This is the shot the jigger E-club was made for, and so I pulled it out, out of my loyalty to its inventor, Michael Bamberger (who is also the author of one of my favorite books, To the Linksland, but more on that later.)
As I say, I WANT to love the jigger. It’s a useful club, and the story of its invention is a good one. And I (used to, anyway) kind of “knew” the inventor, which was also neat. But I don’t pull it out regularly enough to get good at it, and so I haven’t really dialed it in. What I need to do is spend some time practicing with it around the green, so I know what it can do. It generally hits the ball a little further than I intended (it has a very heavy head), so this time I backed off a bit, and left the chip a good seven feet short. Seven foot putts are not automatic for me, and I left the putt – directly on-line – three inches short.
Bogey. +4 after six holes, and now I had to par in to get my 40. With the two hardest holes on the course to come.
Hole No. 7. 518 yards. Par 5.
A par-5. Nobody should bogey a par-5. Just throw a 5-wood out there into the fairway. And then another one, further down the fairway. And then an iron up around the green. Chip up close, and try to make the putt.
I even wrote in my score book, as direction to myself, “PUT 5-W IN PLAY!”
And what did I do?
What do you think?
Pulled the driver. Tried to kill the ball.
Why?
I hit a short, wicked, snap duck hook off the tee, which, in fact, ended up on the front of the tee box of the par-3 fifth. The ball was in long grass, about eight inches below my feet, and miles from the green I was shooting for. It was a horrible shot. (After this monstrosity, I teed up another ball, and put a nice, smooth, easy 5W on it. Not tremendously long, but up on the right side of the fairway, short of the bunker. A spot I could easily have played from.)
From my downhill lie, in the rough, with a line of trees between me and the fairway I was aiming for, I needed something good. I gripped my 7-iron all the way at the end of the grip; in fact, my left pinkie wasn’t even on the grip I was choking it so far down. I tried to swing slowly and under control, and actually hit a very nice recovery shot out into the fairway, advancing the ball a pretty good distance.
My third was from 215, but in the fairway with an opening to the green. A nice 5W would get it up there in front, with a chance to chip up and at least have a shot at par. A good 5W can go about 200 from the fairway for me, so I tried to kill it.
When will I learn?
I caught it fat, taking a huge divot and leaving it still 150 out from the green. That’s when I deflated. I lost the head, as they say.
I caught it fat, taking a huge divot and leaving it still 150 out from the green. That’s when I deflated. I lost the head, as they say.
Hit a 7H up and over the green, into the rough on the far side. An EW chip managed to hold the green, but 18 feet from the cup. Two putts later, I had a double bogey.
Again.
I double bogeyed the par-5.
Pathetic.
+6 for the round, and the dream, for that round, was dead.
Coming off the seventh, I got an e-mail from Henry, my 9-year-old. He doesn’t have a cellphone, so he can’t call or text, only e-mail if he wants to reach me.
The e-mail I got?
“What do I do if the fire alarm goes off?”
Immediately, my mind starts racing. I know his mother had to go drop off Charlie at a classmate’s for a homework project they were working on. Henry’s home alone. Is the fire alarm going off, or is he just being cautious? I emailed him back, asking if the fire alarm WAS going off. If it was, he should go to the neighbor’s and have her call mom . . . Then waited for my e-mail to send, and waited for him to write back. Evidently she was cooking chicken, which sometimes smokes in the oven, and just wanted Henry not to worry if it went off. By the time I got the full story, she was home. It was an interesting diversion in the round.
Hole No. 8. 402 yards. Par 4.
After my disastrous double on number seven, I wasn’t going to shoot 40, but I could still prove to the eighth hole that I was not its bitch. I could prove that I can keep the ball out of the trees (or backyards) down the left side. I could prove that I am not intimidated by its length. I could prove that, when I come to that hole at +4 for the day, I can still shoot my 40.
Again, in my book, I had written “5W in play!”
And this time? I did it. Again, not too long (the fairways were quite wet by this point, killing any roll, or at least that’s what I told myself), but I was down there in the fairway, right side, and not down in the trees at the corner of the dogleg. I was still a little over 200 yards from the green, so I put another nice smooth 5wood on it, and got it up there, about 40 yards short. In good position, fairway short of the green, but I had to go up and over the guarding front bunker, so I couldn’t hit my little bump-and-run that I’ve been working on. I pulled out the 60 degree wedge, with a reasonable chance to knock it close and maybe even have a putt for par.
Nice timing for my worst swing of the round; I skulled the 60 all the way over the green, back onto the path to the 9th tee. It was a truly horrific shot.
Alas.
From behind the green (about the same distance away), I hit the 60° again, this time onto the green, but as far from the pin as possible. I had a 42 foot putt, which I lagged up to about a foot. I knocked that one in for another double bogey. I was +4 after six holes, and +8 after eight.
Disheartening.
Hole No. 9. 155 yards. Par 3.
I approached the ninth tee fairly well deflated. I had had such a round going, and now I needed to par the last just to break my previous best score (which wasn’t very good at all.)
I pushed the 6-hybrid off the tee, down the hill off the right side of the green. Missed my spot by 30 yards. I pulled the 60 degree wedge again, and knocked the ball to 20 feet above the hole. Try as I might, I couldn’t will that ball into the hole.
Bogey.
Ended with a score of 45 again, as I had done the previous round.
I tried to take some positives away from it. I did start out really well. I showed I can play number two moderately well, and I proved again that I need to follow a gameplan on the long number 7, my nemesis.
I started walking up to the clubhouse from the ninth green, a path which takes one right past the first tee. Sure, it was still raining, but sunset was still an hour or more away. The course was empty.
How about nine more?
The pro shop was dark when I got upstairs, locked up for the day, but I found Jeff in the bar parlour, with the remaining stragglers from the wedding reception, and asked if I could get a replay rate. A couple of the guys chuckled (I looked a little like the bishop from Caddyshack; I had been basically standing in the rain for more than two hours, soaked), but Jeff said “yeah, I don’t think the hard stuff is going to come down for a while” and sent me back out.
April 29, 6:30 pm.
Steady rain, calm winds.
Hole No 1. 314 yards, par 4.
After playing the first nine, I noticed all of my tee shots were coming up shorter than usual. I attributed that to the wet grass, killing any fairway roll. So instead of pulling the 4H, I teed off with the 5W, trying to keep a smooth swing to keep it down the right side.
It was beautiful. A perfect 5 wood right down the right side, leaving only 145 yards straight into the front of the green.
I pulled the 6H and hit another lovely shot, which landed on the green just short of the flag but rolled all the way to the back, leaving me a 12 foot downhill putt. I got a little eager with the putt, and rolled it five feet past. But it was now directly below the hole, and I had been able to see the slight break as the ball rolled past the hole. It actually even left a little track on the rain-soaked green. All I had to do was hit it back along that line, firm enough to get there.
I did, and it nailed the back of the cup.
Par. Even after one hole.
Hole No. 2, 365 yards, par 4.
I knew I had to keep the ball in play, and I put another good 5W on the tee shot, and got it into the fairway. This could start to be a new habit. Another nice 5W flew just short of the green, but right up in the neck. Not bad. A good chip could get me up there with a chance for a par putt.
I tried to be a little delicate with it, and ended up leaving the 8 iron chip shot about 30 feet short. I gave it a good run, but left that one a foot short, and tapped in for a bogey.
+1 after two.
Hole No. 3, 480 yards, par 5.
Two easy five woods in the fairway left me about 150 yards short of the green. I hit a very nice 6H uphill to the green, but it released through the green and ended up on the back fringe. I took a run at the 30 foot downhill putt, and it actually lipped out. It left a 4-footer back uphill, which I rolled in.
+1 after three. Hm.
Hole No. 4, 270 yards, par 4.
I pushed my five-wood right, but on a very short hole, it didn’t matter. I was over near the trees, but if I had a shot, it wouldn’t be a bad miss. Getting up to the ball, I found I had about 85 or 90 yards in, and a clear shot between trees, albeit over the bunker. With a back pin placement, I hit a full EW and left it about 20 feet below the hole. I gave it a good knock, and it flew past the hole, stopping about 6 feet past the cup, with a sidehill lie. Again, the wet greens helped me, and I’ve gotten much better about watching the ball as it passes the hole to see the read on the way back in.
I knocked that bad boy in, for another par.
+1 through four holes.
Hole no. 5, 125 yards, par 3.
Another easy 7-iron. This one held the green, but on the far right edge. And the flag was on the far left edge. I paced it out: it was a 55’ attempt. I actually rolled it up there pretty well, leaving a 4-footer. Which lipped out.
Tap-in bogey, and I’m +2 after 5 holes.
Still, encouraging.
Hole no. 6. 340 yards. Par 4.
I’ve got a shot at this thing. Forty is in my sights.
Again, I put a standard (my old standard) driver swing on it, the one that should induce my old hook, because this is the one hole where I can use that hook as a slingshot around the corner.
I over-cooked it and hit a duck hook into the lake.
*#%@.
Penalty shot. Still on the tee, hitting my third.
Pushed out way right through the trees onto the second fairway. Still have a chance to go for the green. Reared back to wallop a 5W, and topped it.
135 yards in, over water, hitting 5th shot.
High 5H that sailed, sailed, sailed right. Into the other lake.
Dropped six.
Hitting seven, a little 8-iron chip.
Two putts later, and I’ve taken a nine on the par-4, +5 for the hole and +6 for the round.
This was about the time that I realized exactly how wet I was getting, out there in the rain for three, almost four hours. Even with the pre-round stretching I had done, my back was tightening up, and it was getting dark.
The back of the sixth green actually leads to the ninth tee; you have to take a detour to the left to get to seven and eight, so I took the opportunity (smell my pants) and just went straight over to nine. For some crazy notion, I’m convinced I’m going to ace this hole someday. I don’t generally think that, and, given the two, the much shorter par-3 fifth hole is probably statistically more likely, but I always have a little zing of excitement on this tee. As if it’s just a matter of time. (don’t read too much into this; I felt the same way about the much shorter par-3 ninth hole at Golden Gate GC in San Francisco. Never smelled a hole-in-one there, either.)
Anyway, I teed it up on nine, wondering as I did so if I managed to ace it, if I could then go back and play seven and eight to make it an official round, or if the rules of golf said you had to play all of the holes in a proscribed order?
It turns out it didn’t matter. My 6H airmailed the green. Probably the purest shot I hit all day.
I chipped it up from behind the green, but my heart wasn’t in it. I putted with the blade of my wedge, didn’t hole out, and called it a day.
I hadn’t gotten my 40. After falling apart on seven and eight in the morning (by which I mean 4:00 PM) round, I didn’t even manage to better my previous best score, finishing with another disappointing +9 45.
But, you know what? It was golf. And golf beats not-golf, almost every day, and twice on Sundays. I look forward to next Sunday.