When is shooting a 129 a good thing? When you do it over 27 holes. I don't know if its a regular feature of the course, but expecting to get the "better than average" deal of riding 18 for $25, and having the clubhouse attendant tell me that because of leagues, I should play the front twice and then the back was like having the cashier at Ponderosa say "you can only go through line once, but here's a garbage can for your mashed potatoes, and if you just want to lounge around the roast beef tray and pick right out of there, that's okay too."

So I shot a 40 (+5) on the front nine, from the white tees, played it again and shot a 43 from the black tees, with 12 total putts. Now I don't remember hitting alot of putts from the fringe (which of course, don't count), but this should tell you where the trouble was. Too many lost balls, mishit balls, and downright crappy shots.

So on to the back nine (finally), and it was just the same as the last time I played here. Some great tee shots (or at least finally setting up good approach shots after rough tee shots), and playing them into double and triple bogeys. Of course, to keep me coming back, I put my tee shot on 17 about 4 feet behind the hole, but only made par, then laid up perfectly off the tee on 18, hit a 7 iron to about 25 feet, with a nasty downhill, sideways putt for eagle, left it close and finished with my second birdies in as many trips this year, totalling a 46 for the nine holes.

One day I'm really going to figure this course out and break 85. Hell, maybe even break 80. With a pair of one-putts on the front nine to save double bogey, it could have been alot worse, but with a three-putt from 8 feet for bogey on a par 3, it could have been alot better. That and I spent too much time in the water. It was like my golf game was there, but it would rather play Jacques Cousteau than Arnold Palmer. The pace was un-necessarily (how in the hell do you spell that, anyway?) slow. Seems to me that twosome plus twosome equals foursome and a quicker round for everyone. Not that it needed to fly by, it was a great day, and I was on a golf course. But there was no rhythm at all. Hit a good shot off the tee, wait for people to clear in front of you. Then promptly blade an approach. Ugh.
On the bright side, after I wasted my third straight drive in the fairway (to the tune of 7 or 8 over on three holes), I finished par-bogey-birdie. The bogey on 17 was a little cheap, as I was 10 feet behind the hole off the tee, with a chip off a mound to a green that sloped steeply toward sand and water. Gave it a perfect stroke, great speed, it inched past the hole, and released another 6 feet. Lipped the uphill, sidehill putt coming back and took a four.
The last hole is the one where I took an 8 after hitting my third from 30 yards behind the tee box. Not having a chance to break 90, and securing a round under 100, I tried to bend one around some trees off the tee, and avoid the huge pond 270 yards off the tee. Instead, I carried the lake with a 3-wood, dropped, hit a 7-iron from 155 to about 20 feet and made the birdie putt. What a finish!

For a 93.

Day two of the golf-a-thon was a little rough. I'd like to blame it on the semi-catatonic state I woke up in, but I actually started off on my normal pace. Sure, I couldn't get a couple putts to drop, and I was ripping approach shots a number of different directions (besides straight, of course), but I was still right at bogey golf through seven. A couple doubles to finish the first nine, then the fun begins. A decent, yet slightly left of the fairway drive, followed by a second shot into a greenside trap, soft sand, uphill lie, pin about 8-10 yards away. Simple, right? Two whiffs through the sand later, I finally make contact and get the ball out, to the other side of the green. Chip back across, and two or three putt and we've got an 8. A seven and an 8 on the next two holes, and this round is screwed. I don't know what I shot in relation to par the rest of the way, but I think I had one par, and maybe a couple doubles. A 101 is no way to remember Central Ohio golf.

This is a great course. And once I figured out how to hit things straight, I scored pretty well. Only 10-over on the last 16 holes. If I wouldn't have started off so shitty on the first two, I could have been in business for a REALLY low score! In the end, I'll take the 89 and run, but it could have been so much better, really. The greens were also awfully fast, which took some time to get used to, especially with alot of slopes and breaks, but I still stayed at or under a 2 putts per hole average, which is nice. And for the price, I might have to give this course another look the next time I'm in Columbus.

Two straight rounds under 90!?!?!

Not so fast my friend.

A fairly steady round, with some difficulties dropped in the middle, but I kept everything to 2 putts on the green (which at this point is both a good and bad thing!), and threw up a few pars, but ended up on a triple-triple-double string that pushed my final total to 94. Play bogey golf on those three holes and I'm in at 89. Not continue to shank my irons off the tee, and it might be closer to 85. Not play that beautiful tee shot on No. 11 into a 7 or so, and I'm definitely in the mid-80's. But alas, I guess that's why we play the game.

Repeatedly.

And then again.

The only reason we played this course today was we got out too late to beat the leagues. So rather than play 9 holes at a familiar track, we headed about 30 miles west, and I don't know why we haven't found this place before! Fun course, great layout, excellent condition from tee to green, and since it was 3pm on a Monday, there was NO ONE out there!
After a mulligan off the first tee, I settled down and started hammering drives again. It was outstanding! I lost a few right or left, but there was plenty of room on most holes, so it was very forgiving. I think I only actually "lost" two balls all day, and found quite a few fairways along the way.
So not only were the tee shots working, but the irons from the fairway were doing their thing as well. So good, in fact, that I had a chance at par on 16 of 18 greens. If only I could have gotten the putter working a *little* better, though 36 putts for the round is nothing to be too upset with.
I finished with an 86, possibly my best round ever, and definitely my best in quite some time. I've got a month left in Columbus, I definitely have to hit this course again!

Not much to say about my personal golf game here, it was the company scramble, and tee shots weren't the only thing being scrambled. For the second year in a row, I finished off a good part of a 12 on the course, unfortunately, this year it wasn't good enough to win the outing.
While I couldn't get off the tee to save myself until about the sixth hole or so, other parts of my game really kept the team around, and everyone was contributing with putts and drives. Once I found my swing, though, look out! Three woods off the tee straight and about 265-270 yards every time. The irons were working, too! I figured if I could put this kind of round together on my own, I'd love myself. And I was right!

Still not where I hoped to be at this point in the season, but a fairly straight-up 96. The only reason its "fairly" is there were a couple balls that I "lost" in the short rough, that I would have easily found if I had bothered looking hard, instead of keeping ahead of the group behind. So give me a 98, either way, I'll take it after the past few outings.
The putter was working well, 31 putts for the round, and only 2 3-putts. I'll take 7 one putt greens any day. For the most part, I chipped the ball well and my short irons were effective when needed. It makes me feel alot better about defending my title in the company scramble next weekend. Maybe with one more round in before then, I'll really have things going. I was most impressed (though not TOTALLY impressed) with the way I got off the tee. Pretty long, mostly straight. The worst thing about this course is the "gimmick" holes. Number 4 is a 90-degree dogleg around a thick spot of trees and O.B., and I invariably ALWAYS hit it 5 yards too far off the tee and end up hitting from the shrubery along the back of the dogleg. Hit a bush, punch out, carry the green from 60 or so yards, punch back out, chip on and putt. Sevens suck. Add to that an 8 on a par 4 on the back, and take away those 3 putts, and I could have been much closer to 90. A good feeling after the 10 I took off the first hole last Monday at Thorn Apple.

Got a chance to work on my softball swing in this one. Unfortunately, it was on the golf course. On the bright side, I seemed to straighten it up a little bit toward the end of the round, and I did go 3-for-4 last Thursday on the softball diamond.

We played the back nine, which conveniently starts off with a 550 yard par 5, I took a 10, with a small bucket of mulligans off the tee. Next was a par 3... 245 yards into the wind. Fortunately, I had parts of the game almost working in time for the 452 yard par 4. I ended up with a 54, 4 beers down, and time to get back to softball.

Sure, this was just posted in the comments after my last round, but I figured I could do it up with a post.

Not only am I pleased to find that GolfRewind.com is a legitimate, potentially useful site, but I'm a touch honored to have been asked for a link, especially as crappy as I've been playing.

I haven't looked too much into the site yet, but what I have seen is impressive. It looks like a place for tips, ideas, suggestions and stories for all skill levels. Eventually when I get a new list of links up, I'll have that there and hope to visit often.

A few weeks ago, I thought I could shoot an 85 here. At the start of last week, I thought I'd be lucky to break 100. I did, but just barely. A 49-49-98. The 49 on the front was just due to some very poor putting, as well as a little shakyness off the tee, the back nine was surprisingly low, considering the 7 beers after the turn and hitting my third shot on 18 from 50 yards behind the tee box. Seriously. Two shots, two trees square-on. But, I saved triple bogey with a good 5 wood for my third, and a "smart play" pitch around the water for my 4th, of course from there, I carried the green, chipped back across the green and two putted for the 8. Not good, but fun.

Next up I think is a little something a week from Sunday, I don't know if I have the patience to try to get back out again before then. Got a new golf bag, though. I had seen a Callaway stand bag I liked, but not a "$100 plus tax" sort of liking, so I was thrilled when I found a Maxfli bag that was almost identical for 30-40 bucks cheaper. Now if I can just figure out where all the pockets are....

Ouch. This isn't a good sign for the rest of the golf season. A nice course, but not an incredibly difficult course if you stay out of the rough, but with a bucket full of mulligans off the tee, I still only managed a 53. I guess that's what I get for flying out there after work, pretty much stepping on the tee as soon as I put my spikes on. Softball is killing me, I can't keep my head down on anything, and it shows on my tee shots. EVERYTHING is getting topped into the ground and going MAYBE 30 yards. Not good. Fortunately a par on the par-3 17th saved a little bit of face.

The course itself is nice, but like I said, not overly difficult. However, I noticed alot of trying to give a country club feel to a public course, mostly in the verbage used around the course. The big one was the scorecard saying "Golf Club of Dublin: Circa 2002". So it *might* have been built in 2002? Can you remember back that far? Shirts and ties on all the employees was cute, though it made me feel a touch out of place in my golf shirt and ball cap until we got out of sight of the clubhouse. I'd love to go back sometime to get a few of those strokes back that I gave up, because I really think that if I even putted adequately I could score well, I just have to get off the tee box.

The big league substitution day arrived. And thanks to the Mulligan Gods (and whoever invented the foot wedge), I broke 100. A 97. Not good. It took most of the front nine and part of the back to remember how to get off the tee consistently, but when I did, it wasn't too bad. The putting stayed rough at best. I think I had 40 putts for the day. And it was windy, which didn't help the irons at all, either. But it was a good day to get out and golf with the fam, and I won $15 with a par on the ninth (a great time to make one of the two pars I had on the day), so all was not lost.

My unwillingness to drive more than 6 1/2 minutes to play a round of golf by myself has me back at Raymond. And, while it was a better round than last week, it was still a 48. But showing promise. If I could SOMEHOW keep my drives straight (and by that, I don't mean "straight left" or "straight right" or "straight into the trees"), I'd be in great shape. Aside from a few distance issues with my irons and battling a stiff breeze, that part of my game has been pretty solid.

Though today's round wasn't without a few lessons, courtesy of "Mike":

-When hitting from the sand, it should be like you're scooping a bucket of sand and tossing it over your shoulder. Apparently, this lets you keep the ball in the sand and try it again.

-"A nice little bump and run" from 85 or so yards should be played to within 15 or so yards short of the green. This way, you can "bump" it onto the green with your sand wedge, and then "run" it 2 or 3 more times with your putter.

There was more, but these two stuck out.

Next up is a round somewhere up near Toledo with family, and then the first official "Grab Your Balls" Outing in Indianapolis. In 11 short months it went from four guys thinking, "We're going to be drinking this afternoon anyway, why not do it on the golf course?", to upwards of 3 foursomes thinking the same thing, but likely drinking more, and with money on the line. Isn't golf a great game?

I could only get nine in today thanks to leagues starting at 3:30 (which if I would have ridden, I probably could have beaten off the back tees!), but it was probably for the best. I had a few decent tee shots early, some not so decent tee shots late, and the middle was just pathetic. The one thing I still don't like about this course is that while the first hole is long and straight, the green slopes hard from back to front, so even if you get the kinks out early and are on in 3 or 4, you can take a 7 or 8 with no problems at all. That's what happened for me. In the trees off the tee, punch back to the fairway, chunk a 3-iron from 210, but end up just short of the green, run a long chip past the hole, then three putt. And so the day went. Two mulligans on the next two holes and some winter rules on the 5th, and I think I shot a 53. Not pretty. Especially with less than 3 weeks until I'm playing for beers in Indianapolis. Better stock up an extra sixer.