Golf Thread

Out today for a round, bloomin' hell it's got hot all of a sudden... I swear on Wednesday at Weston it was maybe 16c, today was 27c apparently... I walked. I'm very very tired :p

Weird game overall, front nine was utterly awful, 9 points. So many poor shots. Pulled 2 drives into the bunda for 3 off the tee. Just awful. Back 9 was solid, like really solid. +6 on the back 9, 3 pars and 6 bogeys. Easy golf. But how can it be so different? Stupid game.

Also got to par probably my favourite hole at the place which felt pretty nice :) It was on the back 9, obviously.

Must be something in the water at my course - think I have seen 3 people had a hole in one in the last week or so :eek:

Two of the members at my place got a hole in one last weekend! Definitely something odd going on.
 
Picked up some new shoes at lunch, UA Drive Pro SL (wide). A little more than I wanted to spend but the cheaper UA pair I was eyeing up were a touch tight in the toe box. Currently wearing them in around the flat before their first outing tomorrow. Being the model up from my previous UA spikeless pair they do have a thicker sole with more cushioning. Hopefully the extra bit of height doesn't mess with my low point control. If I play terrible tomorrow I know what to blame!

Edit: the shoes can stay. Shot 81 (+10 gross) for 40pts in this morning's roll up :) Despite starting double, double!
 
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Stableford comp today, set of well with a par, 2nd hole i tried playing just short of the green and rolling up and hit probs my sweetest struck 50 degree shot ever and landed about 110 yards, looked great apart from the back of the green was about 115 so it sloped off into a ditch. That was it then a few holes where i just couldn't get going, had a go with my hybrid out of the rough and its brilliant not sure why i've not tried it before.... then a couple of holes later about 160 yards out i went 7 iron from the rough and the grass turned the club face as i was hitting it causing it to f off the wrong direction, why i didn't just use my hybrid and have less of a swing god knows.
We have a hole where you tee off from up a cliff with a tight right out of bounds, befofe i went out today i was thinking just split the par 4 into 2 even appraoch shots and use an iron off the tee.... get to the top with a driver in hand and spank both the first and 2nd out of bound.
Ended up on 25 pts and somewhere down the bottom.
Goods Points - my hybrid was good, my putting was better than last time, iron play generally ok. Kept my head just about
Bad Points - Drive was all over the place, really short chips seemed to duff more than say 15 yard chips.

Medal / strokeplay next week so with todays **** round i'll be playing off the full 24 allowance i suspect so that may help. God help me.
 
Started well this morning with a birdie on the first, and a front nine of +2 gross

Then lost a ball on the 10th after we suspect it took a big kick right into some bushes and we couldn't find it, so no score

Rest of the back nine was littered with bogeys and another double on the last for a +7 gross back nine and a total of 81 (32 points)

Hopefully I play better on Monday in the mixed open we are playing in
 
Not a great round today thanks to back to back blow up holes on the front nine caused by two terrible shots. Did rally to par the next four holes upto the turn. Back nine was ok and included a birdie (a 40 footer downhill at the 16th), seems to have been making more of them recently.

The round was however good enough to be a counter. This means I'll be down to 14.0 tomorrow morning :eek:

@SKILL Pull your finger out :p
 
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What can I do! There's only so many comps to do and we all know that's the only true input for handicaps! :p

Played Cumberwell again today for the society round, the joys of golf where the overall score was 2 shots better than Friday on the same courses, but felt worse in general... Did get a birdie on a tough par 3 though (~170 over water), and sank some loooong putts, but also just a few too many doubles etc.

Then drove ~4 hours from Wiltshire to Wales for my little mini-break, non-comp round tomorrow but Tuesday and Wednesday are comp rounds and will go on my record one way or another :D
 
Bag of nonsense at the weekend again.

Cruised thru first 5 holes level par, doubled 6 and bogied 8 & 9...

The proceeded to forget how to swing a club on the back nine... Think I shot like +10 or something for 85 gross... Just bizarre golf at the moment....

Short stay at 5.1 - jumped back to 5.5 already. 3 of my next 4 to drop off as well.
 
That was not fun today - a 5hr round in 31° heat was brutal

Mixed open with best male and female score to count on each hole and we finished with 82 points

It was 2nd place when we left but don't expect to finish there when all the scores are in

3 birdies in the round, but a lack of sleep due to a house alarm going off last night from 1-4am and the heat saw me struggle the further the round went on
 
Played Borth and Ynyslas yesterday, nice course, bit 'rough and ready' in places but nice. Fair few holes are very basic/open links (kinda reminds me of Weston) but then there's some moe dunes to work your way through for 6-8 of the holes in the middle which is nice, tee shot on the 12th being blind messed with my head though so messed that up. Started off very badly, double and a quad on the 2nd! (which counted as 2 shots) Overall though +19 for 89, course handicap would be 22 for a solid 39 points.

Sometimes I can convince myself I actually can play golf! Par'd all the par 5's, including one where I missed a ~4/5 foot birdie putt 'annoyingly'

Not quite as bad as @TheCSSDoctor at around 26/27 but the heat was still a lot! Silly old me is carrying (hard to fit golf clubs, luggage *and* a trolley in an MX-5 :p) so the bag weighed a ton to start with as I had about 3.5 litres of fluid to keep me going, just about enough and at least it got lighter as the round went on... Course was quiet/playing solo too so it was only a 3.5 hour round

Today is Aberdovey but not till 16:15 tee off, comp too so gonna be slow, light even be finishing after sunset... Forecast is 'only' 24c and getting cooler as the round goes on :)
 
I only went and bloomin' won it! :D :eek:

£250 TaylorMade voucher for me... Do I get another custom MG5 or maybe a new putter, a nice spider perhaps... :D

Sorry guys but I went and did that high handicapper thing, 'round of my life' etc, 46 points!!!

Guess who's getting an 'Exceptional Score Reduction' overnight :cry:

Really not sure what happened, I swear it's 99% just keeping my head straight, did lose it briefly when I realised I was level through 7 (5 pars, 1 bogey, 1 birdie) so picked up on the 8th but then settled down again to par the 9th and on it went really, think it was 1 birdie, 9 pars, 6 bogeys a double and the pickup. Pretty solid :eek:

Royal St. Davids tomorrow, then got my knockout match on Friday and Club Champs on Saturday, the handicap cut aint gonna help those :p
 
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I only went and bloomin' won it! :D :eek:

£250 TaylorMade voucher for me... Do I get another custom MG5 or maybe a new putter, a nice spider perhaps... :D

Sorry guys but I went and did that high handicapper thing, 'round of my life' etc, 46 points!!!

Guess who's getting an 'Exceptional Score Reduction' overnight :cry:

Really not sure what happened, I swear it's 99% just keeping my head straight, did lose it briefly when I realised I was level through 7 (5 pars, 1 bogey, 1 birdie) so picked up on the 8th but then settled down again to par the 9th and on it went really, think it was 1 birdie, 9 pars, 6 bogeys a double and the pickup. Pretty solid :eek:

Royal St. Davids tomorrow, then got my knockout match on Friday and Club Champs on Saturday, the handicap cut aint gonna help those :p

Well done! 46 points Is possible at high handicap level, there is no disputing that. The round of your life will happen more often when you get so many shots.

a lot of the prejudice comes from people who do that in comps and then dog their handicap with really high general play scores during the week with their mates off the yellows, you're not guilty of that mate! Be proud of how you played!

All you need to do now is keep them simple thoughts and you'll motor on. Well played.
 
That seemed to get a bit manic/busy after that round/post :p

My handicap was 'only' cut by 2.5 shots, from 21.1 to 18.6, I was expecting the -2 ESR to kick in and be ~3.5 but it didn't for some reason...

Then early morning and a drive to Harlech to play Royal St. Davids, which proceeded to remind me why golf really is hard :cry: Shot I think 96 or something gross, was 29 points so a bit of a change from the day before :p But where at Aberdovey if I hit a poor one I 'got away with it' or even got a couple of lucky bounces there was no such luck there. Worst bit was on the 5th or 6th I think it was hit a poor 'power fade' tee shot into a bunker, fine you'd think, get punished for a poor tee shot with a fairway bunker but the golf gods really wanted me to feel the pain so they put the ball right under the front lip of the bunker held up by a single blade of grass or whatever it was, like how, I swear a decent gust of wind would make it roll down to the bottom of the bunker but noooo.

So yeah.

Also, long par 3's can go sod off. 215, into the wind, uphill, off the yellows so not even the back tees. Sod. That. In fact any par 3 over 150 yards can go sod off, and any course designer who puts one in should be forced to change career into something they might actually be good at :p

I know there's a very distinct bias based on how I played but I'm not sure I'd ever get on with Royal St. Davids, and no real desire to go back, I'd happily play Aberdovey, Borth & Ynyslas and Porthmadog again but not sure I'd play RSD again unless it was free...

Porthmadog was today, bit of a change since last time I played it (~3 years ago), they've had to close one hole and currently it's a temporary layout that's essentially the back 9 first (with 2 new temp holes) and then 3-9 from the original front 9 as the last 7. Initially I was a bit unsure how that last 8 would go as my memory of the place was of a 'nice but forgettable' parkland style front 9 (now back 7, ish) and then flicking a switch to a proper hard links setup for the back 9. I even thought of playing the 11 links holes then bailing given the loooong drive home and the heat but ended up enjoying myself so continued.

And really, I was wrong, that 'nice got forgettable' parkland-y is actually very pleasant to play, sure the links bit with the dunes, views and gorse is the bit you really remember but I really don't think the parkland bit lets it down at all. For what it is/how much it is it's a great course imo.

Then a 5 hour drive home! Tired now.

Tomorrow 18 hole matchplay knockout at my local, thanks to my Aberdovey round (and actually the Royal St. Davids one actually counts too) I think I'll only get 3 shots but should be fun, after 5 days in a row I'll either be tired or absolutely dialed in, one of the two :p Thinking of switching to a trolley tbh but really enjoying carrying.
 
That seemed to get a bit manic/busy after that round/post :p

My handicap was 'only' cut by 2.5 shots, from 21.1 to 18.6, I was expecting the -2 ESR to kick in and be ~3.5 but it didn't for some reason...

Congrats on the round - statistically that round of 46 points (10 under your handicap) is around 750-1 :cry: :cry: - So certainly the round of your life indeed.

Enjoy spending the voucher!!

It's the same as me shooting -5 gross, almost needing to tie the course record :D :D
 
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Scary/annoying thing is I've actually had a better round technically, according to score differential! That worked out at 11.1 but my best round to date is at my local, on winter mats (but in early March iirc) was 76 gross for an 8.4 differential. I think the Aberdovey one is 'better' as it's not a course I've played a hundred times or more but still, technically it's not.

But the annoying side is I know I can do those kind of scores, like 8-12 over kinda level, I regularly seem to be 4 or 5 over through 9 but something changes, almost certainly mental, and then it all goes away, just occasionally it doesn't and that happens. Feels like if I could just get that mental issue sorted I'd drop my scores/handicap instantly.
 
Played my knockout match today, got 4 shots (would've been 6 before Aberdovey), close match overall but I lost 3&2. I think my head went a bit on the 11th, the front 9 had been fairly slow but a 3 ball dropped out and we were stuck behind the 4-ball that was the cause of the slowness and my god they were slow. Matchplay/comps aren't often the quickest but we were waiting forever for the green to clear on the 11th and I hit a poor shot left into the bunda and lost the hole. Few other fairly silly mental errors over the next couple of holes kinda sealed the deal.

But not to take it away from my competitor, I went in knowing it would be tricky as he's just a solid competitor, been playing for years and has that innate competitiveness if that makes sense, just thrives on it and plenty of experience, always a tough matchup. I probably played better than I feel like I did right now :p

Tomorrow is the club championships, out nice and early at 7:16, lovely, but if I make the cut it's a 9-hole 'second round' on the same day (used to be 36 holes over 2 days with a cut) which is a bit meh, and I'll probably be left with sitting for 2 hours+ Or I could just come home I guess :p
 
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