Today was the day! My first ever full round of golf, 18 holes at Stockwood Vale near Bristol.
I dunno if I posted but I went to a Pitch and Putt near Chippenham on Monday and it was a bit meh, both the course but also my playing which kinda sapped the confidence a bit. So I decided that before the round today I'd turn up and do 40 balls on the range (for the conversation above it was £4.30 for 40 balls, no fancy automated stuff or shot tracking). Unfortunately that went really badly so basically started the first hole with zero confidence I could hit the ball anything close to properly.
And it showed, first hole was bad, 2nd and 3rd were pretty bad too
But I did improve, a nice hit here, few tips there and it got a lot better and obviously my confidence improved and it actually got reasonably ok by the end... I'd say there were 2 holes that actually felt nice, all the shots 'worked' etc, that was good
Overall I scored 128! That was capping to 8 per hole as well (my first hole I don't think I even made the green in 8 on a fairly easy par 4). I'm quite happy with that though, didn't hit the cap every hole and really in the back 9 when I did score 8 that was actually scored, as in I did putt the ball into the hole at the end rather than picking it up. Think my best was a bogey on one of the 2 'good' holes.
Not sure what people will think about this but even found a golf ball (deep under the trees and 99.99% sure it hadn't been played recently/from another hole and it was a Titleist Pro V1X, shiny
Didn't actually use it though as it's way better than the rest of my balls and didn't want to lose it
Tiring though! Just over 4 hours, did ~8000 steps even with buggies and I'm feeling it now. And I've booked on for another round on Friday at Woodlands north of Bristol, lots of water so I expect to lose lots of balls
Back on the range prices the main two I've used before today are:
Whitley Golf Club - Really close but it's a very no-frills 5-bay (and some grass area) range, no automatic tees or shot tracking but 100 balls for £7
Chippenham Golf Centre (not the Club/Course) - Better facilities/more bays but still nothing automatic or shot tracking (at least not in every bay or setup outside lessons, saw something that might be related) and 100 balls there is £10