Club Championship Post Mortem

Whatever I write now, or in the future, will not change the outcome – I lost the Club Championship on the fifth playoff hole. But my inability to sleep tells me I should get the post-mortem out of the way sooner rather than later, so that I can forget about it quicker and get on with things.

As mentioned in a previous mobile post, my first round score was 79, including a spectacular mini-collapse over 5 holes in the back nine where I went from 1 under par to 7 over par. As it happens, my playing partner and eventual winner, let’s call him R for the sake of repetition, did exactly the same thing and played the same 5 holes in 8 over par to go from 1 under to 7 over.

I made a conscious decision between rounds to get away from the golf environment (I three putted 4 of the last 5 greens), so instead of having a break in the clubhouse, went up the road to the local high street and got my lunch there. I had to do it, as I needed to come back fresh, knowing that somehow I was only three shots off the lead.

It didn’t have an immediate effect in the afternoon round as I three putted the first green in the afternoon for bogey, meaning that I had three putted 5 out of 6 greens. In mitigating circumstances, and as previously detailed, some of the flag positions were absolutely insane, not in a negative way, but just incredibly difficult. Most players were struggling with them, but I think that’s exactly how it should be, the course is meant to be set up difficult for a Club Championship, and it certainly was. All of the tees were as far back as they could possibly go, and the course was the best and most challenging condition I have seen it in the 3 ½ years I have been playing it.

After the initial blip I steadied things and was level par after 9, only to take a treble bogey 7 on the tenth hole, from the middle of the fairway 140 yards from the green.

Once again I came back with a birdie straight away, and the lead changed hands between the three of us in the final group several times.

I was two shots behind after 34 holes of regulation, and stuck my approach shot to 1ft for a birdie on the 35^th hole, which coupled with R’s bogey meant we were level going down the last. A couple of regulation pars later and it was time for a playoff.

I looked at my score later and it was 3 over par 74, the best 18 hole score of the day, with that stupid treble bogey. I played the other 17 holes in level par. As things turn out, I also for the first time this season exactly hit both my targets for greens and putts – 14 greens in regulation and 32 putts.

The format for the playoff is 4 holes, and if the scores are still tied after that then it goes to sudden death. As it was, even if the playoff had been sudden death right from the start we still wouldn’t have been separated, as we halved all of the first 4 holes in regulation pars. We both had chances to win it, but the putts just didn’t want to drop. My best chance was a slight lip-out on the first playoff hole.

The fifth playoff hole was the first hole on the course again, and having hit my driver 3 times down the fairway already on that hole during the course of the day, I stuck with it. This time however it came out of the heel of the club and into a stream about 110 yards from the hole. There was about 1/6 of the ball above the surface of the water when I reached it, and having looked at the options for taking a penalty drop and seen that they were not good, I decided to play it out of the stream. Fortunately my golf shoes are still waterproof and the water level was just below the top of my shoes, and after a couple of prayers and an explosion of water, I had moved the ball 90 yards towards the hole into a greenside bunker, although still about 20 yards from the hole. R was safely on the green for 2 with an almost certain 4 on the cards, so I knew I needed to get up and down. I hit a good bunker shot, the distance was perfect but the clubhead was slightly closed and it went about 9 feet left of the hole. I was left with a putt on the same line, but shorter, than the putt I had on the first playoff hole. I hit it well, it looked in with a couple of feet to go, so much so that I started walking after it to pick it out of the hole, only for it to veer right at the end of it’s breath, and lip out exactly as it had done on the first playoff hole. Game over.

So that in a nutshell is how I lost it. I’ve played 4 of my 7 major competitions this year and I have not achieved one of my targets yet. R played well and deserved to win, he will win many more club championships as he has quite a big learning curve, I don’t have many more chances to win it so need to grab every opportunity I can, which I didn’t today.

I’ll finish with some pros and cons about today, maybe they’ll help me see things in an objective light;

Pros;

- My handicap was cut, probably to 3.5

- I won some money (I really couldn’t care less about this, you don’t play a Club Championship to try and win the cash prizes)

- I conducted myself in a dignified manner in adversity and defeat

- I went down fighting (this pleases me, I was 1cm away from getting the best par 4 of my life, and I was down and out after the 7 on the tenth hole, only to fight back again)

- 29 of 41 holes were par or better, including 6 birdies

Cons;

- I didn’t win

There are more pros than cons in there, unfortunately the con carries more weight than everything else combined. As has been said about 200 times now since I came off the course – there’s always next year. Say it enough times and I might start to believe it.