Played a quick 9 tonight after work - the weather was gorgeous and the course was wonderfully empty and quiet.

I started badly as usual, making double bogey on #1, a long and straight par 5. Then I went bogey, bogey on the next two and I was actually feeling pretty good after hitting some really solid shots. On the 4th at Tashua Knolls, a par 4 dogleg left hole with bunkers all around the green I found myself in the sand.

No kidding, I thought back to episode 38 and opened my club face wayyyy up to the point where I thought Coach Dave would say, OK, that’s far enough. I took a deep breath and a full swing. The ball floated high up and over the lip and gently landed on the fringe and rolled to about 10 feet! I made bogey and continued my round.

On the 9th hole, I teed off with a god awful duck hook that actually ended up on the far side of #1, about 50 yards left. I spotted the 150 yard marker and pulled out a 3 hybrid as I eyed a big bunker sitting right in front of the green.

I hit a terrific 2nd shot that looked great but ended up in the bunker. I was nervous and excited to give my new sand skills a whirl and again, opened my club face wayyyy open, then turned it just a tad further, hearing Dave in my head saying “more, more, more."

Once again, a took a full swing and once again, the ball lofted up and out of the bunker, landing 20 feet from the hole and rolled down towards the pin, stopping about about 12 feet, pin high.

Wouldn’t you know it, son of a gun, I made par with a firm putt and was totally shocked. That’s what Golf is Hard TV is all about!

It started so well.

I made par on my first hole of the season!

It didn’t go quite that well the rest of the round, but even so, my first round of the year was a lot of fun. It was terrific to get back out on the course and felt great to just be out there. I’ll post some video from the round once I get a chance to edit it. There are a few choice words I have to remove!

I’m sure Dave will comment about his own round, but for me, it was extremely encouraging to hit the ball as well as I did today. I’m really excited about playing this year and am hopeful that my scores will go down dramatically through the year.

My driver was good, if inconsistent. I hit it straight except for one hole where I really, really sliced it hard right. Other than that, the fairway wood felt great as did my hybrids. I’m going to have to really focus some energy on making putts though. I was well on my way to 40 putts if I had played all 18 holes. I only played 13 holes today because I had to coach my daughter’s softball team this afternoon.

Stay tuned for more Golf is Hard TV shows this week, we’ve got some golf goodness coming up including shows giving you a personal tours of the different golf social networks including Stracka, OOBGolf and The Golf Space.

No, I didn’t win.

From Steele Canyon

• We didn’t finish last by a long shot
• In our foursome, I was the best player.
• We shot +1 on the back 9.

From Steele Canyon

From Steele Canyon

Finally, some pics from the tourney I played in with my 9 year old… we shot a 38, +5 on an executive course and had an absolutely amazing time.

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the last few days down in Charlotte at a Member/Guest tournament - my first multi-day golf event and first member/guest as well. Instead of recapping the entire week, I’ll post here my highlights and lowlights for the record. Enjoy.

Highlights

1. Not being the highest handicapper (in fact, I was 5th from worst!)
2. Winning 2 matches on the final day to pull out 3rd place in our flight
3. Pecan pie
4. Hitting my 3 wood from 195 yards, over water to about 15 feet
5. Hanging out with an old, old friend for the first time in years
6. Big break challenge - I almost busted the glass and instead, plugged a ball right through the wood base
7. Punching out of the woods from inside a gulley about 15 feet down onto the fairway

Lowlights

1. Tapping the ball by accident on the final hole of a match. I needed to make a long putt for a tie, but didn’t even give myself a chance. Humiliating.
2. Losing 2 balls OB while stroking. We lost that hole.
3. Not owning a driver, and feeling lame about that
4. Losing 8-2 in our first match after shooting a net 31 in the practice round

Overall, it was an incredible event and I personally had an amazing time. My partner however, needs to either change his strategy, or find a new partner for next year if he wants to win. We ended up 2-2-1 in match play (we won both matches on the last day!).

One other note for those of you struggling with your golf game… I’m a 19/20 handicapper and had a 23 course handicap for the week. I’ve come to believe that there is simply a limit to how well someone with my skill (or lack of) can play. I made some good shots and some bad shots and probably shot around 99-101 gross each round which isn’t horrible. But in the end, there is just no way that I was going to shave 10 strokes off my game just because it was a tournament. That meant capitalizing when I had a stroke. I managed to do that a few times, but not enough apparently.

I have totally lost my blogging muse and have slacked off completely here at Golf is Hard. That said, I haven’t had much of interest to talk about either lately.

Last weekend, I played in a father/daugther tournament here in CT. She’s 9 and still very much learning the game. That said, she’s got the etiquitte almost down (she’s still restless on the green while someone else is taking their shot) and is a terrific little putter. She nearly dropped 2 20 foot birdie putts and missed a 30 footer for par by about 3 inches. It was way, way too much fun playing in a scramble like that and we plan to do it again.

Meanwhile, I’m headed to Charlotte to play in a member/guest tournament with a very old friend. I’m pretty nervous for two reasons. First, I want to represent well and have this feeling that the course isn’t going to be so easy). Secondly, I haven’t ever played that much golf in such a short time period and I’m worried about my back. I’ll have to add a ton of stretching every day to get ready and hope I’ll hold up well. We’ll see.

I was in Colorado Springs this past week for the CIO 100 event and had a chance to play in the tournament at the Broadmoor Mountain course. In a 4 man scramble, we managed to miss our only 2 real birdie chances and shot an ungodly 8 over.

How do you shoot 8 over in a scramble? Easy, you stink it up and miss putt after putt. That’s how! The winning team shot a 62, beating us by a country mile.

The course itself was gorgeous! Most holes are basically looking up at the mountain, and the views are really spectacular. Here’s a big time tip for playing this course… putt away from the hill no matter what your eyes are telling you!



We had a putt on the 18th hole that looked like a HARD break to the left. But after our first putt, we saw the ball seemingly break upwards, and away from the mountain. Incredible.

I played in a best ball charity tournament a week or so ago at Whitney Farms Golf Course in Monroe, CT. My friend Dave invited me to play because his company, Hudson Valley Bank was a sponsor and for some reason, there were extra spots (can you believe it?).

The course was in great shape, and we had a chance to play with Dennis, a course ranger who is 75. Not only did he know the course inside and out, the man was supremely consistent and knew exaclty how to play his slicing 150 yard drive every single time. I was amazed!

The winning team shot something like a net 57. C’mon!

I played OK - and as a team we did decently shooting 4 over with 4 bogies. It was a bit frustrating not to close out any birdies, but truth be told, we only had 2 legit shots at them, and the putts simply didn’t drop.

After the round, we had dinner and heard a lot of good stuff about St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport… I’ll be sure to go there if something bad happens!

The weather was perfect.

The work week was over.

I had to play some golf.

When I entered my score, the handicap computer told me that the score was much lower than normal and was I sure I wanted to submit it… uhh… yea I want to submit it!

I played out of my mind. I have never, ever felt the way I felt on golf course as I did today. I wish to god I played with one of my friends (so they’d believe me) and played a full 18. But that said, the +5 (41) I shot on the back 9 at Tashua Knolls is a round I’ll remember for a long, long time.

I made par back to back TWICE!

I sunk a 20 foot putt for par!

I chipped up with a lob wedge twice to within 10 feet!

I channeled my inner Tiger Woods (hmm, maybe not - when was the last time Tiger shot +5 on 9 holes?). Back to regularly scheduled suckfests soon, don’t worry.

Seriously though, here’s what I think I did differently. I slowed everything down by 20 or 30% and took an extra club. I tried to keep my swing smooth and to stay “long” in my back. I’ve been feeling like I have been dipping down to hit the ball (lots of chunks) - staying long in my back worked for me today.

Played my last round of the year (most likely) a week ago. After an hour frost delay, the greens were extremely tough. Some were frozen, and some were muddy. It was odd. My putting was horrible, and I missed 4 par chances, which is 3 more par chances than I ususally miss on any given day.

After starting horribly, I settled in and ended up with a 100 on the nose (give or take a mulligan). I was disappointed at first, then realized that I’m averaging a 98 in my last two rounds. This year was a total success on the golf course.

Interestingly, I didn’t pull my driver out of my bag once in either of those rounds. I managed to tee-off with my 3 hybrid which I hit about 200 yards. I think next year that I’ll try to figure out my driver and will most certainly have to work on length.

That said, course management is finally something I need to consider, especially mid-iron range shots. Once I started hitting the ball somewhat consistently earlier this year, I started to realize that I need to be more strategic playing my 2nd and 3rd shots. I’m pretty good from about 40-60 yards with my gap wedge, and very good from about 120-130 with my 8 iron.

I think I’ll try to play to those spots next year and see if I can lose a few more strokes. I’d love to shoot under 95 next year, maybe even get close to 90 (I’m a dreamer).

Just for the hell of it, and so I can remember, here’s my club list with estimated distances.

GW 70 yards
PW 100 yards
9I 110 yards
8I 120 yards
7I 130-140 yards
6I 150 yards
5I 160 yards
3I 180-190 yards
4Hy 160-180 yards
3Hy 180-190 yards
Driver 200-220 yards (150 with a 40 yard slice)

In the meantime as the weather gets colder, I’m engrossed with Tiger Woods ‘08 on my Nintendo DS. If any of you play, leave a comment and we can become “friends” and play against each other online.