Tuesday, July 17, 2007

And woosh, it was gone

Oh golf gods, why do you torment me so? Everything was going so well, felt like I was on the verge of breaking 80 for the first time in my life. It was right there, I could feel it. And with a wave of a hand the gods have slapped me right back to reality.

It all started Saturday. Cdubya and I were playing with Bubba and his wife at Door Creek. Playing from the blue tees, I started with a double bogey (bad drive) on the first hole and then went on a bit of a tear and finished the front nine at 2 over 37, my best for the front there. At the turn I let my mind wander to what could be... 75, 76? Easily I will break my best score of 82, I only needed a 44 on the back to do that and most of the time I can shoot low 40's there without too much of a problem. I thought I should have a beer to help me relax, knowing my mind would be my undoing.

And I started out pretty well. I hit the fairway, just missed the green and hit the pin with my chip to save par on 10.

Ran into a little problem on 11 when I didn't hit a good tee shot and left myself behind a tree with only a punch out possible. Double bogey.

Ok, no problem. Good drive on 12, just missed the green. Chip, 2 putt, bogey.

Then came 13. Wednesday in league I drove the front edge of the 314 yard par 4 13th from the white tees. This time playing from the blues, the angle is not as nice, have to either hit a big fade around them or go over 100 foot high trees. I'd been hitting the driver beautifully the whole day so I got a little over-aggressive. I decided to go over the trees. And it almost worked. I hit it great, but it caught the very top of the highest branch and where it went from there is anyone's guess. I ended up having to take a drop and hit it in the bunker. Bad sand shot barely got me on the green and 3 putted from 70 feet. Triple bogey.

Ok, breathe... it's ok. One bad hole cannot ruin a round if you just recover on the next hole... 14th is a par 3, only 141 yards from the blues. I pull out the nine iron and oops! Hit it thin, flew over the green and into a hazard. Drop, bad chip, damn it, another triple bogey.

I recovered to par 15, then bogey 16 but hit into the trees again on 17 and took a double. Finished 18 with a bogey for 49... 49! My dreams were crushed. Instead of 76 I had another 86. Not bad but definitely the most disappointing back 9 of my life. I was up most of the night replaying what should have happened and how I let it get away. It was making my stomach ache.

I resisted all urges to go out and play again on Sunday and instead ran some errands and pressure washed the house.

Monday comes and I'm subbing in the company league again, this time at the Oaks. Playing the front 9 we started on the 2nd hole (shotgun start). I hit the green and 3 putted for bogey (very difficult green) and then decided to hit 3-wood off the tee on the par 5 3rd hole. Aiming for the right half of the fairway, I hooked it so hard that it ended up in the rough clear on the other side of the 1st fairway! I hit an iron back to the fairway where I chunked a wedge short. Another bogey. Good drive on 4 but thinned a 5 iron into a bunker. Good sand shot got me on and I made par.

Par 3 5th I thinned a 7 iron this time way right down a big hill into the fescue. Luckily I had a decent lie but couldn't even see the pin I was so far down the hill. Miraculously I hit a sand wedge to 6 feet and made the putt for par. Ok, I'm playing like shit but I'm only 2 over after 4 holes. Decent drive on 6, but again, thinned a pitching wedge right of the green. Bogey. Sort of thin 6 iron on the 180 yard par 3 7th and a bad chip and then a lipped out putt gave me a double bogey. Good drive on 8 but again, thinned a wedge clear over the green. Again, a bad chip and another lipped out putt ended with another double. 9th hole I hit a good 3 wood and another that went a hair right. This time I slowed down my swing with my wedge and hit it ok but not hard enough and left it short. Chipped it well past the hole however (what the hell happened to my chipping???). But fortunately this time I didn't lip out the putt and drained it from 20 feet for par. Back to the first hole to finish up. Good drive, wedge hit pretty well left me about 15 feet uphill for birdie. Missed it just left, leaving myself about 2 feet straight down hill for par. And once again I lipped it out! Bogey. Another guy in our group had the exact same putt and did the exact same thing so I don't feel horrible. But, man, 3 lip outs, and some extremely horrible iron play and chipping left me feeling like my game is completely gone. The only thing I can take away from it is that despite all that crap I had a 44 which isn't the end of the world. And my drives are working well.

Oh, and to make matters worse, the guy I was playing (and the guy I beat 12-8 last week despite giving 4 strokes) decided he would exact his revenge on me and shot a 40 while getting 3 strokes from me this time. He whupped me 17-3. Not sure I will be asked to come back and sub again!



Oh yeah, remember how my electronics are failing? DVD player, a/v receiver, router and coffee maker so far. Well, you can add spare refrigerator to that list now. When we bought a new fridge a couple years ago I moved the old one to the garage (it's only 7 years old) and use it to store beer and pop mostly. Well, I go out Sunday night to grab a cold Hacker Pschorr and the fridge light is out. Ok, light bulb problem, right? Hmm, the freezer light is out too. And the other lighting doesn't work. And it's feeling a little warm. Oh crap... it's dead. Anyone know anything about fridges? Is it fixable? And what the fuck is going on in my house??? Honestly I'm starting to get really concerned here. How long before I have $6,000 worth of dead tv's?

I'm sorry to whomever I pissed off that's causing this!

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