I mangled the first hole, settling for double bogey after leaving the bogey kneeknocker short on the lip . . . Undesirable, but bearable . . . Then on #2 my drive drifted right to the edge of the trees with normal distance . . . still no worries, but then I couldn’t find it . . . looked for a full 5 minutes, then just took an x . . . I couldn’t imagine what happened to it, I’ve been overthere many times, and always found it . . . so I was upset . . . 6-x is not the way to start . . . even after parring the 3rd, I was still boiling . . . double-bogeyed 4 with some sinful putting, but the greens were very bumpy, tough for a feel putter when they’re so rough . . .then bogeyed #5, missing the green . . . parred 6 with a miracle punch from the base of a tree; then 7 from the edge of the trees again. Then on #8, hit a good shot that bounced off the hill all the way across the green – ordinarily it should settle on the dance floor, but this rolled all the way down into the bunker . . . unless you have a sterling sand game, an instant double bogey. Then on #9, from the short tees, drove into the trees there – I wasn’t really driving poorly, I felt, just having really bad luck.
After some good frankfurter soup, I felt refreshed and re-optimistic, my relaxed drive was wind-blown over into the 2nd fairway. . . no problem . . . rather not be over there, but you can get a good look at the green from there . . . so I found my ball in the middle of the fairway, and hit the 5iron of my life right where I aimed, at the right edge of the green . . . it landed short on the hill, kicked over onto the green towards the pin, wound up 6 ft past . . . I was already tallying birdie on my resurgent back 9. . . and promptly 3jacked . . . From Six Feet. . . 8^0 . . . so I’m right back to boiling again . . . even so, it was better than 1st time around.
On the 2nd second time around, I hit my drive almost on the same line as my 1st time around, but I watched it like an eagle, could tell it was still in play . . . walking up to the ball, one of my playing companions hollered, “Hey is THIS your ball?” I walked back to the rough before the fairway, and sure enough it was – my ball from the recent tee shot on 1. . . I had accidentally played my ball from the 1st time on #2 . . .125 meters closer to the tee than it should have been. The mystery is how it got from where I had last seen it from the tee, to where I played it 8 holes later... Both balls were Callaways with nearly identical markings (a thick green line from the balance machine), so I didn’t notice when I played 1/10: the lost ball was in the middle of the fairway, looked like the other, and the other was sitting down in the rough. So I x-ed #1, after the fact.
I couldn’t decide which was worse: ex-post-x-ing a 3putt bogey, or a birdie . . .
That dang lost ball cost me 2 x-outs on my scorecard.
Well, this old bulldog didn’t quit, but I was done. . . no reserves of equanimity for tactical exigencies . . .
The Bohemian Duffer Rough Stableford Calculator came up with 27 points, so I left directly, without lunch. . . too upset . . .
