The Late Eight - Round 1

UK Handicap; 3.1 USGA Handicap; 1.9

The first of the ‘Late Eight’ – 8 competition rounds over my home course in 24 days that will mark the end of my season – was today.

Today was a sure fire indicator that winter is on it’s way as the temperature was a full 10C colder than any other round in the last 5 months. A fairly strong wind coming from the north and the occasional rain shower coming in horizontally only added to the difficulty of the conditions.

Despite my desire to reduce my handicap, I’m failing to do some of the basics, as I stood on the first tee today having not practiced since I played last Sunday, and having done no warm up at all. Both of these are purely down to time, having a full time job and trying to play golf at a half decent level gets very difficult as the nights start drawing in – no time to practice during the week, and midweek games have to start earlier to get off before dark, meaning that by the time I’ve finished a half day of work I have enough time to get to the golf club, get something to eat then jump onto the first tee.

Sounds like a load of excuses, and in some ways it is, but I’d love to be able to hit 100 balls every day instead of it becoming a weekend pursuit, as it will be for the next 6 months.

As for the golf, I felt that I played absolutely terribly, but I had some escapes, holing two shots from off the green. The reduced temperature also meant the ball was flying considerably less distance than it has been, and combined with the wet ground meant that the course was playing a lot longer than normal. A actually managed to play 14 of the holes in 2 over par, but the other 4 holes consisted of 3 double bogeys and a hole where I picked up, when I was on course to rack up a goodness-knows-how-many.

I hit a pitiful 6 greens in regulation, the worst since 3^rd April, but had 28 putts, the best all season. This made a terrible ball striking round look semi respectful but still not good enough.

So round 1 of 8 was unsuccessful, but there is another chance on Sunday, where I’ll make sure I’ve had a practice and a warm up before I start.