Perivale 9 holes par 34

I had the worst ball striking day I have had in a while topped shots poor, week contact and no distance off the tee but my short game was ok until the last and I managed to record a score.
I shot 43
1 birdie, 2 pars, 2 bogies, 4 doubles

Alright. I am back in the cold and sobered up(for now).

Sober review of Sarasota National Golf Club in Venice, FL: Wide fairways. Nice condition. Green complexes were well done. A few interesting holes with water coming into play, but not too much.

Clubhouse is beautiful and staff friendly.

As boring Florida golf courses go it is right up there with the best of them.

I prefer a course with some trees on it. This one has very few so prepare to be windswept.

Four months to golf in the north. Countdown...

103 - Starfire King/Squire

If I could chip/pitch what so ever..I'd shoot in the low 90s every time

Chip/pitch with your shoulders. Keep your shoulders moving. Use the big muscles, not the wrists and forearms.

<just guessing>

Personal best (using hcp differential).

85 at Pacific Grove, CA (67.0/114).
42/43 w/ 1 birdie, 5 pars, 8 bogeys, 4 doubles.

Wind was calm off ocean which helped on back 9. Had the sickest par of my life on #13. Hit best drive of day off tee, but cut angle over sand and iceplant too short by about a foot. Saw a poof of sand on top of sand bar, found ball stuck a foot below lip with almost no room to get over. Since it was on left side of fairway, I couldn't punch it out sideways onto fairway and hit from 110 yds because I'm righty. So took as hard a swing as ever took with SW and managed to barely pop it out over lip, where it rolled under dead iceplant on descending slope a yard on other side. Took full PW just trying to blast it out of there near green which is protected on 3 sides by iceplant and a grass mound in front. It flew out perfectly with high loft and stuck 6 feet from pin. Made putt for par despite two almost unplayable lies. It was that kind of day for me.

Also, played Poppy Hills in Pebble Beach on Wed with Double Eagle. Just happy to break 100 with a 99 (71.0/134). (DE did much better of course.)


Poppy #10.

Good news it’s not difficult to learn to chip or pitch reasonably well I'm not talking about leaving three footers every time but putting the ball in comfortable two putt territory the majority of the time. I had one lesson on each and a few weeks of practice after each lesson saw my pitching improve dramatically. The chipping took longer because I took the advice of the instructor too far and developed a new fault but that to has improved.

Update my Pacific Grove weekend:
Fri - 85
Sat - 89
Sun - 95

Going wrong way fast. Time for a holiday break, getting worse each day and frustrated by the slow pace with beautiful weather. Need to take some time to internalize and practice what I've been reading and watching last few weeks.

Stockley Park
Par 72 6625 yards

Quite a tight tough course and moderately long. Due to the weather all the other courses have significant standing water on them but Stockley Park drains very well and had no temporary tees or greens.

I had an up and down round my ball striking wasn’t great and it fell apart entirely on one hole but I must have been doing something right because I won with 34 stablford points 17 and 17.
Having just started reading “Golf is not a game of perfect” I was conscious of my own internal monologue as I took my address and after id hit a bad shot. I caught myself being very negative a lot about my ability or where the round was heading but tried to block that out and trust my swing instead of trying to fix what went wrong on the last shot.

4 pars, 7 bogies, 4 doubles, 3 worse.

AHHHH such a weird round yesterday. Opened Par-Double-Birdie.

Santa Clara Golf and Tennis
Par 72, 6130 Yards

41-49

The 41 was my best 9 hole score ever. My 2nd shot on the 360 yard par 4, 3rd hole was probably my best shot I have ever hit. Hit my driver right in the middle of the fairway, had about 135 to the pin over 3 different bunkers. Hit a 7 iron super high and it just dropped a foot from the pin and didnt move. Tap in for birdie. I think i went par-double-birdie-par-double-par-bogey-par-par. Really awesome for me. However, the back was a different story. I made 2-3 good putts but beyond that I was disappointed with almost every shot. I remember on 16, my 2nd shot from the left hand rough ended up going wayyy short and probably 40 yards right of where i intended. I was just dumbfounded watching how terrible the shot was. I think I lost concentration or something, didnt make a par on the back, had a ton of doubles. :\

Monterey Pines (64.3/104)

Sun - 40/44 - 84
Mon - 44/47 - 91

Pelz's Short Game Bible and added lob wedges have really helped short shot consistency, but putting has been horrendous. Improving one area at a time is ok by me, though. Gives room for improvement in stages. 7 days until my Pebble Beach tee time

Last time I played was 12/13 and I shot a 75 out of nowhere. I was E thru 11 and had about a 5 footer for birdie on every hole that i parred (only 2 birdies).

Kind of a sad round....I got booted by my grandfather from my country club for turning 25. (really though, i think he just doesn't want his wife's kid playing there anymore...)

It is okay though. I am joining a new club tomorrow and am super excited. My old one was super exclusive/expensive/perfect condition, but was cramped, short, and kind of finicky. New course is not exclusive at all really, is a little worse condition, but is 6,900 yards and is tough and really pretty. !!!

West Mid par 69 6127 yards

Played matchplay against my father. Won 3 and 1 after being down until the 12th.
Drove the ball well, hit my irons ok, although the divots are going way left so something’s wrong. My putting was very poor I started with a four putt don’t make a thing all day. But the big failure was my fairway wood play 1 good shot 1 slight push and 5 horrible miss hits that didn’t get airborne and went left.

silverstone in vegas, valley -> desert

i usualy play course from the back tees but due to crappy play as of late, i moved up.

i've also put in a lot of extra practice lately to try and work on fixing up my swing and i've got a lesson + some discussion with 2+2 member trufloridagator and things seem to be coming around.

shot 37-41 (78) from 1up tees.

14 greens (best ive done in a long time)
6 fairways (missed a few of them in light rough)
36 putts (left a lot of putts out there today)

had one really unnecessary double bogie where i took 5 shots from 80 yards on a par 5 -- tried to do a stupid high wedge from the rough, left it 20 yards short into a bunker, bunker shot barely gets out, bad chip, missed the putt.

i also had 1 3 putt.

all in all i was very pleased with the round

my key swing thought (and again this works for MY swing, probably not yours) was to keep my left arm tight during my take away which in turn forced my entire upper torso to turn during the take away instead of just the arms (which in turn got weight onto my right side instead of staying on the left) -- this kept me on plane and forced my tempo to slow down tremendously which really helped my iron play a lot. (wow lots of stuff there)

lol i've played twice at my new country club wooop woop and I have hit 2/27 greens.

To be fair, the first 9 it was 35 degrees/25 mph wind, and raining. Shot 51 (I'm a 5.2 handicap)!!! I also insist on playing the back tees no matter what, which is probably a mistake.

Today it was nice weather, but still playing very long due to the ground being very wet. I shot 87. Had a nice chip in for birdie from 30 some odd yards on the 450 yard ninth hole.

I hit three trees directly off the tee on the front nine. I have a giant sweeping hook thing when I'm not playing too well, and I really need to get it worked out b/c it is hard to play decent when your tee shots go 30 yards.

One disappointing thing is I had a 1:15 tee time. Super ******ed busy, didn't tee off until 1:45, and barely finished before dark at 5:45. Somewhat expected that a perfect saturday in the middle of winter would be busy as hell, just hope it isn't too much of a trend.

today was a perfect saturday in las vegas.

65 degrees and sunny, unlike the **** we've been having.

oh well, atleast we're not burried in 2 feet of snow like everyone else

paiute wolf,
37-42 (79)

two double bogeys on the back 9 :/

hit 32 putts today, but missed 4 birdies inside 10 feet (including one from 3 feet :/).

putting is shaky right now.

A little course called Pebble Beach...

Played the golds (72.3/137, 6348 yds). No wind today was huge help. 48 on the front with two of the most gutsy (and successful) fairway 3-woods of my life on #6 and #8. Blew up on the relatively easy par 4 #11 by swinging too lazy from rough causing approach to bleed OB right, then had 3 shots from sand traps (two different ones) to take an ugly 10. Also had a blow up hole on relatively easy #15 with pure slice OB on drive (amazing that I didn't slice on front 9 with ocean all along right, and then hit two OB right on back 9 with no ocean) and then 3-putt for an 8. All told, a 53 on back, making 101 total. Lots of awesome memories though.

View from #6 second shot distance (pic from cart path).



My tee shot and approach on #8 (from there to 10 yds shy of green, but bogey).



Third shot on par 5 #18 - hit into right bunker for bogey.



All told, 2 pars, 10 bogeys, 3 doubles, 3 over. I'll take it.

awesome dude!

cost?
how long was the round?
course conditions?

I'm a Duke's Club member so got email deal to play mid-Dec to mid-Jan for $385 (versus $495). Took ~4.5 hrs, course in good shape. We had a caddie for the group that gave us info on how holes would play for the upcoming Open -- I'm looking forward to seeing a US Open for first time with this perspective.

This actually has nothing to do with me playing golf but it's the only place i thought it would fit outside of a new thread. (I did consider making a "Golfers on twitter" thread, but i guess you'd have one by now if you wanted one)

Graeme Mcdowell twitter update from Dec 2nd... It made me lol



My locker this week!!!! Thanks to Paul_Casey for the photography.

Of course the night before I intend to use my new clubs it ****ing rains. In Arizona. I am cursed.

Want to live in Delaware where it's 30 degrees every day? It was 40 and calm today and it felt like ****ing 60. If there wasn't snow on the ground it probably would have been comfortable enough to play.

that's the problem with where I am, the warm fronts will come through in January and it'll be anywhere from 0-10 (celsius lolz), which just feels like paradise and totally golfable. except there's still 2 feet of snow everywhere.

Where you at g-bebe?

Just doing a bit of quick math, F = (9/5)*(10)+32 = 50.

50 degrees is playable. Not in snow, though.