Holiday roadtrips and golf-a-thons

I don't know about you, but we took a long roadtrip from western NY to Rock Hill, SC for the Thanksgiving holiday. My wife and I left Tuesday afternoon and drove down to see her brother. And oh yes, we played golf---sort of.....

Let me clarify a few things first and foremost: The first round on Thursday was played on a course that was underwater from the day long drenching it got on Wednesday, the second round on Friday was delayed about 45 minutes due to frost (it was 38 degrees in SC!!!). Although, once the frost delay was over it turned out to be a bright sunny 55 degrees. Finally, third round was delayed one hour and ten minutes by frost once again, it was a mere 34 degrees when we teed off and never got above 45 or so.

Ok here goes........

Round one at Waterford Golf Club (Inverness tees, 6513 yards) featured 4 penalty strokes and three 3-putts!!!!!!!! Ouch. I rarely have penalty strokes and I lost 4 balls in various places due to poor shots, club selection and a lack of local knowledge. All and all, after all of that mess, I shot 84. Not bad. I did birdie one par three (a 2 always makes a score card look better) This was a very good course. Too bad it was very wet due to quite a bit of rain the day before, and unfortunately I posted poor numbers.

Round two was the pits. Tega Cay Golf Course (Carolina Pines and Grande View nines, blue tees, 6500+ yards). Again, I loved the course but my game that day did not. My wife will not tell me what I shot. It had to be close to 90 or even worse. I don't want to know. This course was a good one. Excellent lay-out and fast greens. The one and only highlight was the 3 iron on the number 3 handicap hole from 195 that hit the pin and stopped about 6 feet from the pin. (of course, that was one highlight that could have been even better if I had nailed the birdie, but alas I did not). The second shot on that par four hole was all carry over a deep valley and a very shallow green. It was one of very few highlights on a very bad round of golf.

The last round (Highland Creek, blue tees, 6520 yards) started out bad and did not get much better. I had a bad case of the "lefts" with just about every second shot I had. I was coming over the top of everything and trapping it and that swing always produces a yank. I swung so poorly with a 3 wood on one hole that I hurt both of my wrists as my club gouged out a rather hefty divot. This is another fine golf course and I would play it again in a minute, hopefully with better results. This too is a round that I really don't want to know what I shot. It had to be close to 90 again. The 18th hole was a par five with a huge lake all the way from tee to green and the entire fairway sloped rather severely towards the water. I bit off a bit more than I should have and dumped my tee shot in the water (why not). At this point I just dropped in the fairway and went for the green from about 210 over the rest of the lake and of course dumped that one in the drink as well. I pretty much did not care at that point, however and picked up.

On the bright side of all of this I have to say that I pretty much put on a clinic with my driver. There are 42 fairways to hit in 54 holes of golf, excluding par 3's. I don't think that I missed more than 10 or so. I have developed a routine with my driver that gives me great confidence on the tee. I have to apply that same deliberate approach to my second and third shots and for some reason I don't. I will for next season however. I am hitting the driver too will to shoot as poorly as I did last week.

Well, I know that I probably bore you all with my blow by blow discriptions of my rounds, both good and bad. But here I can rant and rave, toot my own horn and get it off my chest without any rolling eyes (that I can see) to make me feel like a braggert. I should have been a TV golf analyst I think. I like to talk about shots that I have made and some that other people have made.