39-43-82. 2 birdies, 1 double bogey. 70.2/124/6,250 yards

If you'd watch me play the first five holes you'd have thought I'd never seen a golf club before. Easiest stretch on the course, went bogey, bogey, double (on a 125 yard par 3 even), bogey, scratched out an ugly par on a short par 5. Flipped a switch, hit a 7 iron to three feet on 6 and made it. Wedge on 7 to 2 feet, made it. Got up and down from a bunker on 8. Routine two putt for par on 9 and somehow it's a sub-40 nine. Back nine was much more typical, one mistake per hole resulting in seven bogeys.

With a cart on a very hilly course. Ive played this course 4 or 5 times before.

4 pars. 2 bogeys. 1 double. 1 quadruple. And I put one in the junk on 9 so I tried to get up and down from the back bunker. Hit a good shot and made the 3 foot putt.

Didnt get to play the back. Long story.

Highlights: 2 putt par on 1 from 18 feet. Fun sand shot to elevated 2nd green I was happy to put it on the back fringe directly behind the pin. 4 iron on par 3 to 25 feet made par. Almost chipped in birdie on par 5 made par. 6 iron to 20 feet on par 3 made par. On 8 I hit a nice 2 iron off the tee and on 9 I hit a nice 3 iron off the tee.

42 (par 36). 1 birdie, 3 double bogeys

Lots of rain yesterday so no carts out, decided to just walk nine and get home in time to watch the Masters. Ball striking okay with a few really good shots. Pitching and chipping awful, putting nothing special.

Howell Park 54-57-11

The same exact course I played the day before and had (for me) a great 99 on, breaking 100 for the first time ever, I go out and shoot a 111 on the very next day.

I learned the mental component of golf. As I said the first 3 holes are just in my head on this particular course especially. The first isn't overly difficult just nerves hitting that first tee and first fairway/rough shot and a tricky green. I hit a great drive and actually followed it up with a good hybrid in the fairway. I don't hit far mind you. My brother in law said he started the 18 birdies, which I use for distance. I get up to my ball for my 3rd shot to get a distance and he didn't add me. I quickly open a game and get a distance of 118. Hit my 7 iron pretty solid, little chunk but def enough to go at least 110 and my ball is still about 40 yards short of the green. I check birdies again and in a rush I opened up the run course and got a wrong distance. This put me on tilt for the next 3 holes, mostly pissed at my brother in law but not verbalizing it. Just lived in my head.

Then my drive started falling apart. I don't know what I did differently. I drove the ball so well (for me) in terns of keeping it in play. No distance. I don't know if I think I decided I need to get more distance or what but after the 4th hole I completely forgot how to drive. Literally grounding the ball off the tee, popping it up, getting a horrible slice back. It got to the point where I wasn't sure if I was even going to make contact with it when i stood up there. Not a great feeling.

Amazing how two days can be so different. Now driving is in my head again. Hopefully playing tomorrow so getting right back at it.

On Saturday my partner and I lost our Spring 4-Ball match 5 & 4. Frankly surprised it didn't end earlier. I'm a 9 and my partner was a 15, and we played against a 1 and a 5. Both of them were on (the 1 was a couple under when we lost), and we played like ****. You hear "I didn't hit a single good shot today," but I honestly didn't except for one. It was ugly ugly ugly. Aw well, it was fun.

Funky story from my friend who played behind us: the two they were playing against brought a friend to make it a fivesome. Super casual tournament, but still a bit unkosher. Close match, and on the 12th hole friend's partner hit it onto the green rolling towards the hole, when the extra's ball came from over a mound and hit the rolling ball, knocking it quite a ways back from where it would have been. He made the putt, but still annoying. They ended up winning on the third playoff hole after another mishap on the first playoff hole: opponent picked up his mark after they gave his partner his putt (which was a dead ball) before taking a few steps, realizing what he did, and putting it back down. Friend didn't want to win that way, so let it go.

Sunday: 46-39. Monthly Breakfast Club and we started on 8, so there was just something about the front side for me today no matter when I played it. Started off with an atrocious bogey-triple on two of the easiest holes on the front side and I thought it was going to be another really long day. The triple was do to complete inability to hit out of the sand; guess I need to work on that.

The 39 was just back to good golf (I had a brief chat with the pro about what I might be doing, and he was dead on). I made one long birdie putt, but other than that it was just solid shot after solid shot, standard two putts. I missed three putts of two feet or less, which sucked.

I finally get to post in here again tomorrow! Range session went well, I don't have very high hopes for a great round tomorrow.

Good luck, and more importantly good health, out there tomorrow scott.

Had a weird round yesterday. 76 on the par 72, which I was plenty pleased with, but the double bogey from 125 yards out in the middle of the fairway and the triple on a 260 yard par 4 left me a bit irritated. Throw in a 3 putt par from 25 feet on a par 5 and it definitely ended up being a "what could've been" kind of round.

47-44-91 (+19) 5 pars, 9 bogeys, 4 2 Bogeys+

Highlights include par on first hole that included a deft chip from just off the green from a downhill lie onto a downhill green to set up an easy one-putt. A 293 yard drive with my 3-wood, followed by a great pitch and two-putt for par on the 6th hole. And a ~115 yard approach from somewhat hard ground in the left rough with my pitching wedge on the 15th where I made par. Someone in the group behind us playing on an adjacent fairway exclaimed that the pitching wedge shot 'was a great shot from there.'

But I was disappointed with the overall score and the 2 triple and 2 double bogeys. Three rounds ago I shot a +9 on the same course, which I mentioned in another thread as my record, but the next two rounds were +17, before today's +19.

42-41-83

1 birdie, 4 doubles. Made a 50 footer on the 2nd for birdie. Overall happy I'm back.

Congrats, hopefully it was pain free and you can get back to the task of bringing down your average cost per round at the club to about $3.50.

Pain free, the new skin was a bit irritated on a couple of bad swings, but that's it.

I think the big difference on the pain scale is that I'm not coming back from a broken this or sprained that. The damn thing was completely removed so it's just wait for the incision to heal, then it's all good.

And another +19 on the same course that was also a 47-44! And probably even a similar number of pars, bogeys, and bogey +'s. But I didn't plug my Garmin watch into my computer to recollect the exact details. I would have to seriously rehash in my mind to recollect everything.

I find myself using the rangefinder more and more, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Sometimes it surely helped with club selection, however the Garmin watch does allow me to adjust the pin placement, a feature I haven't really used much yet.

Went and played 7 holes (+1) after work yesterday. Only played 7 because the hand was getting pretty sore. Not pain, just sore from use (I did have a 30 minute range session earlier in the day). Figured there is no way I play today. 3 advid and ice before bed and I wake up and have never been better!

38-39-77 - 4 birdies, 3 doubles

Cold topped one on the 3rd hole into the water. Have not done that in ages. I was even able to make some full iron swings 2x where taking more was not an option. Overall very happy. Still not ready to hit a driver yet though.

Beautiful day yesterday, first round of the year.

45-39-84, 6350y. Got a bit sloppy on holes 5-9, something like triple-bogey-double-bogey-bogey.

2 birdies -- chipped in on 2 with the shot of the day, little punch chip that released down the hill into the cup. Solid 8 footer on par 5 10th for bird as well.

Putted the lights out which definitely saved my round. Anything 6-12 feet I stood over, felt like I couldn't miss.

Great start to the year.

41-44-85. No birdies, 1 double bogey. 71.5/133/6500 yards.

Not much consistency. But, at the same time, not much that was awful. Looking forward to some warmer weather.

40-40-80

2 birdies, 2 doubles

Still can't chip for ****. Need to spend several hours there.

39-40-79 par 72

2 doubles on the back, 1 birdie. 4 3 putts. Gotta clean that up.

38-42-80. 2 birdies, 1 double bogey.

A little more consistent, though putting wasn't very good. Did convert the two birdies chances I had from inside four feet.

Teed off this morning about 14 hours after my second vaccine shot. I was hurting pretty bad all day but managed a great round.

37-37-74 par 72. 5 birdies(two 5s, two 4s, and a 3), 1 double, 2 3 putts. Started off the round by blading an 85 yard bunker shot about 50 yards over the green and took double. Bounced back with 3 straight birdies. A bad 3 putt on 9 to finish up the front, then another bogey on 10 was followed by 2 more bridies. Had a 1 under back going till a near shank on the par 3 17th led to a bogey, then another 3 putt on 18 for bogey. I can't remember ever putting as good as I did today. Yeah, there were two 3 putts but on some pretty huge two tiered greens. I don't think I missed anything inside 6 feet and only missed a couple from inside 15.

Added an eagle to my home course best ball. Lob wedge from 108 (elevation) on hole 5, one hop and spun in. Now have 10 eagles, 8 birdies for 44 career best ball.

Ooooo need to think in my head what my career best ball is.....

South: 1 albatross, 5 eagles, 12 birdies - 47

North: 5 eagles, 13 birdies - 49

The albatross is obviously a hole out. Only one of the other eagles is a hole out, the rest are home in 2 on par 5s or drivable par 4s.

50-53-103 Shark River today

I can't get off the tee. I've regressed so much on the tee it's disturbing and discouraging.

I hit every hybrid shot near perfect today. I dont get a ton of distance but I just hit it so clean and so solid. Also had the hybrid putting from 50 yards and in working really well. Greens were being aerated and really slow so putting was a little tricky. Some good irons some chunks. If u can get off the tee I'm breaking 100 easy. I'm actually impressed with how well I can recover from a 40 hard pop-up or 60 yard pull or flat out whiff 10 yard topper these days though.

Wow, shot a whopping +33 yesterday, not just a record high, but probably the first or second time I ever broke 100 in the wrong direction. I massacred the first hole with a +6, had only 3 pars, and racked up numerous doubles and triples. The second hold was a triple bogey, so at +9 already I was thinking it would take 9 birdies just to get back to even par. The round was complete toast scoring-wise right out of the gate, lol.

I had a good session on the grass range a couple days prior, but a poor one on the regular range mats the morning before my bad round. It could have been a harbinger for what was to come, but sometimes there doesn't seem to be a correlation between the range and the course.

Even so, I still had enough good shots mixed in to make it worthwhile, including a really high pitch shot from like 30-40 yards to get over some tall trees to end up like 12 feet from the hole. One of my partners asked if it was a flop shot afterwards on account of the loft and soft landing, but I told him in wasn't. I was thinking to myself that keeping my legs balanced and holding off my weight transfer at contact was what enabled me to hit it. The funny thing is later on I hit another pitch with a similar loft where it wasn't required to bad effect, as I left it well short. In that scenario I was thinking it would really have been useful to be able to control the loft and have it come in lower with perhaps some spin to knock off some roll if necessary.

The partner was pretty good btw, but claimed he didn't make his high school team back in the day because it was so competitive that everyone was like +5 or better! Have any of you played high school golf with such a tough field?

51 (par 35) yesterday, from the tips (only 3400) but a decent wind. Hit the driver abysmally which hurt me a lot, as that setup from the tips has some extremely long par 4's (460y both into the wind) and I made a couple quads.

Far cry from the first round on Friday!

Now it's supposed to be dodgy weather until next week, so bad to hibernation. Hopefully get to the range.

Ha, if you had a 60 yard pull on my course you would be in the deep jungle or in the front yard of the house across the street from the houses lining the course.