Notes:
1) perfect drive to the bottom of the hill leading up to the green. perfect half-wedge to the front pin location. was left with a horrible, downhill left breaker 5 ft. after studying it intensely from both sides (I haven't birdied #1 once this year in competition, but multiple times in practice rounds, grrrr), I left it short. Unbelievable that that ball would stop short. As I said elsewhere I have come to understand that the greens are inconsistent and the pin-placements a little unfair (at times). So with a shrug & a sigh, to the next tee.
2) Hit a bullet at the gap between the two sand traps guarding the green, ball was caught up in the rough between the right trap and the green. handy. but my chip went 12 feet past the pin. forearmed having watched it roll past, I confidently rolled my putt, and to my amazement watched it stop short too.
3) with a little misguided west texas red-ass, hit my drive pin high, but underneath the tee-mounds for #4 . . . fortunately had no tree trouble, but my only viable option since the hole was on the narrow throat of the green was to pitch it short so it would roll off the otherside. It did stop on the collar, on the other side, so I had 15 ft or so with a hard right break, which stayed up high. My ball and my competitor's were side-by-side, a foot away from the hole, and we agreed with smiles "good-good".
so I had 3 tap-in pars to start, which is a condition I have had a few times this year. It's not a bad start, but in the McGuffin competition, where sometimes one gives more than 1 shot away in handicap, one is unlikely to have a 3-hole lead. We were tied .
4) Hammered my drive up the hill, past the inside of the 85 degree dogleg, but I just hit the easiest shot in golf, the second-shot-5-iron, rather than trying to get close to the green, and had 60-some-odd yds left. I hit my standard half-wedge, hoping for some roll, but it just stopped by it's pitch mark. First putt was short, but I made the 8 footer look easy. My competitor got a shot on this hole, and his third shot was from way back, I think he hit 3 wood, but it carried past the green, and he had to spend his shot getting back, so we were still tied.
5) my nemeses, the back-to-back par 3s follow, and no-matter the 4 pars before, I had shaky confidence going in. Sure enough, I thinned my 9 iron onto the back collar, past the pin on the front of the green . . . My whole game causes comment, from my (lack-of) fundamentals to my my schizophrenic scoring. Among my curiosities is how I putt with irons instead of a putter, from off the green, when that is the opposite of 100% of golf magazine advice and counsel from golf adepts, but I just don't like the way the ball rolls off the collars here (which can be very large at Harbor Lights), so I chip with a 9iron, or a 7iron (the way my daddy taught me), or even a 5 or 3 iron, for very large greens, but I never practice those, never need 'em here. . . So I mis-clubbed, using the 9 and trying to hit it a little longer, rather than just using the 7 iron, so it came up short, but I made this downhill 8 footer also, with an entertaining circle around the rim of the cup, first. So one *could* say that I made this par with TWO lucky breaks, but I would say, I made two 8-footers in a row!
I took the lead in the McGuffin competition, but I hardly noticed. While we waited in my partner's cart for the #6 green to clear, I pointed at the scorecard to my partner and said "Yahtzee! 5 in a row."
6) Both these par 3s are deep in my head. I finally bought a 5-hybrid just for #6, 167 yds, since my 5,4,&3 irons all seemed to go the same distance, short, bringing the water into play. But I don't like this 5 hybrid, it takes all I can do not to hook the holy-macaroni out of it -- I like it when they move the tee to the back, and I can just soft-peddle a 7wood there. So I successfully steer-jobbed it pin-hi, left of the green (90% of the duffers in the O65 league wind up left, between the cart-path and the green). Something that has not worked for me much this year is pitching <20yds, even tho' I practice that before every round . . . last year, and even this spring, I holed-out from within this distance enough that I made it a marquee part of my game, confidence-wise, but this shot seemed like a dream the way it pitched into the last of the tall rough by the green, then trickled down a slight mound, next to the hole. Another par, 6-in-a-row. One might call it Luck, but as Mr. Science used to say, "Luck is when Preparation Meets Opportunity".
7) The most notorious hole at Harbor Lights, for the Giant Tree that blocks the left 2/3rds of the fairway. Yeah there are people who can fly it, even from the white tees, but I ain't one of 'em. I haven't seen anybody hit a normal-height hook, either, except me, for a brief period 2 autumns ago, when I suddenly and temporarily had the knack with my 7wood. Sometime last year, I think my partner said I should just hit my line-drive tee shots (my normal shot) under the tree, which I did with success the rest of the summer, making #7-8 birdie parleys as frequent as my #2-3 birdie parleys. It's a huge mental obstacle to force the ball under the tree limbs, and I haven't really had luck doing that this year, and #7 is one of the holes I haven't birdied this year, in competition -- again, in practice rounds, I have several . . . but on this day, I calmly hit a line-drive, down the middle, short of the traps, leaving me with one of my favorite shots, the 1/3rd PW. The pin was on a plateau on the back-left corner of the green, and my local-knowledge is for a birdie attempt, it's better to be left of that pin, even on the collar. BUT NOT in the deep rough beyond, because of the uncertainty of wedging out of that rough and keeping it up on that plateau, instead of rolling all the way down to the catty-corner. But my shot bounced off the plateau, into the rough. But like on #6, I hit a once-in-a-while chip that trickled down 4 ft from the pin. I easily made that putt. 7-in-a-row.
8) On the tee, my competitor said, "Well, you closed me out, won 3 straight holes, with 2 to play". I was surprised, I don't really keep track other than to know when I might concede a putt, preferring to concentrate on Eagles and Birdies. #8, rather than #7, which people think is harder, is where you give your handicap strokes, so making birdie is essential there . . . but I've only made 2 or 3 birdies there all summer, in the league, for reasons I don't know. On this day, I hit a very customary shot for me, down the right side, avoiding the trees on both the right & left, and the ball will roll downhill to the left, positioning for a nice birdie try . . . unless you go into the trap, which I did. I'd rather not, tho' I still maintain vestiges of confidence in sand traps, and, rather than trying to get close to the pin, in the top-left corner, sloping hard away to the left, I just wanted to get on the green. I wound up instead on the collar. For the long uphill shot, I putted with my 7iron, aimed 3 yds right. The ball barely got up to where the green drops off towards the pin, and trickled down next to the hole, like on #6, for another gimme par. 8-in-a-row.
9) While 9 pars in 9 holes would be a noteworthy achievement, I felt no pressure about it . . . I would rather eagle #9 again than make 9 pars, in this example, but what I did was pop-up my drive off the toe, I think I let myself get ahead of the ball again, for only the 2nd or 3rd time today, I was afraid it had gone out of bounds, making all aspirations moot, but it was still in play. laid up with a 5iron to an awkward distance for myself, 100 yds, between clubs . . . and the wind was against me, making the calculus all the more difficult, so I just hit the half-wedge hard, but in control. It still came up short, on the front of the green, and again, I got 0 roll, I had to fix the pitchmark, before I could putt. This putt was something like 45 ft, over the large ridge that divides the green, and the summer has been hard on this green, leaving it very patchy on top of the ridge, definitely something that could alter the roll. I figgered the distance control and s-curve breaks over the ridge, and let it rip, barely cresting the ridge with any momentum, my partner urging like a horse he had money on, and, minutes-later-it-seemed, it stopped next to the cup. Tap-in par. 9-in-a-row.
I'll add the scorecard when the league finally publishes it online.
Summary:
- TAP-IN-PARs (6/9 )- 1,2,3,6,8,9
- PUTTs-MADE (3/9) - 4,5 (8FT), 7(4FT)
- PERFECT DRIVEs(4/7 ) - 1,2,4,7
- ADEPT CHIPPINGs (1/3 ) - 8
- ADEPT PITCHINGs (4/6) - 1,3,6,7
- CRISP FULL IRONs (4/4) - 4,9
