After 36 holes and at least double that in beers through two days, I was struggling when we teed off at 9AM for the third and final round. Unfortunately for me, playing with a number of serious golfers, Sunday was almost the most important day in our competition, with own ball match play for a point on the front, and a point on the back. After playing two days with golfers similar to my skill level, I played with verified 8 and 13 handicaps, and would be lying if I said I didn’t let their superior play affect me, regardless of handicap. My biggest challenge was once again putting, especially since absolutely everything had to be putted out on the last day.
Putting: what more is there to say, my one major takeaway from the three rounds over the weekend is that my putting is nowhere near where I thought it was. During this round, I bet I gave up 10+ strokes that could easily be shaved with more focus on my putting. While I was planning to work on my chipping after each range session for the foreseeable future, I will now shift between chipping and putting each session.
Chipping: my chipping unfortunately took a step back. Likely a result of the heightened stakes, I bladed more chips during this round than I had the two previous combined. This result was not consistent with recent trends, so I won’t put too much stock into this until I see it recur on the course. That said, I will continue to focus on my chipping during every other range session as it still represents a major opportunity to improve my scores. If my putting is going to struggle, being able to chip close to the hole will be imperative to keep my scores down.
Short irons (SW to 8): my short irons were ok on the day, though I did blade or shank the ball more often than during the past two previous rounds. That said, as a whole, I was happy with the way I hit my short irons over the weekend, feeling as though I’m making progress since the season started.
Long irons (5 to 7): I was happier with my long irons on the day than previous rounds. Aside from two shanks that came on the 2nd hole causing me to be 5 off the tee, I was consistently hitting my 5-iron 180 to 210 yards off the tee with great ball flight into the center of the fairway. I also hit two 7-irons out of bounds off the tee on the par three 4th hole (yes it was that type of start), but managed to settle down and hit two more later in the round from 155 and 160 yards out to within puttable distance (missing both putts of course).
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend, though admittedly three rounds of golf was a lot, and I ran out of steam by the 15th hole on the final day. I’ll write a subsequent post about the tournament overall, but safe to say it only fueled the fire for me to improve my game so I can attend more golf trips in the future. While I had a great time, I definitely scored the highest on my team, so I look forward to when I’m one of the average golfers or better.
Breaking Ninety 