This past Saturday I played in our club’s “Turkey Shoot.” It’s something they do every year at the local scrappy nine-hole course just for fun. Then we all went over to the Treehouse (we are the Treehouse Golf Club, after all) for the awards banquet where we had lunch and they gave out all the awards for the year and raffled off prizes. My raffle prize was a box of Maxfli M3 balls, but where I really made out was with the awards.

I knew I’d be getting the club champion trophy, of course. I think they did a really great job with these trophies, too. They even made the extra effort to have the golfer be in a woman’s image on mine. Maybe we can get some more women to join this club!

I guess I hadn’t realized there would also be a trophy for B-flight champion. I also didn’t know I had won something for overall low net. Or that I had placed third in president’s cup points (you get points for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes, as well as tournaments entered, closest to the pin, long drive, etc). So I got trophies for all those things as well. I wore a path from my seat to the presenter!

All in all, it was a fun afternoon!

Here’s my new trophy display area.

From left to right: (wall) 2nd runner up, President’s Cup; (standing) Low Net;

(wall) B-flight Champion; (standing) SCGA Champion of Club Champions*;
(wall) Club Champion; (standing) Hole-in-One, Apple Mountain.
I never received anything for my other ace at Tierra Rejada or it would be there, too.

*Side note: Some people have suggested that I get my name engraved on that SCGA plate. I don’t know, though. It seems like if I alter it, it’s not the prize I won. What do you think?

Next post.

…Continued from SCGA TOCC: I love competing

The Results

On the last hole of the day (hole #2 for us), I was just off the green in 2 and just wanted to chip it up close to tap in for par. My chip was long and I ended up about 25 feet from the hole with a tricky looking double breaker. My strategy the rest of the day had been to take an extra stroke to get on the green if necessary, then weasel up close (perhaps you call that a lag) and go for the two-putt. (Essentially, I was playing for bogey golf on the more challenging or longer holes.) I looked at this tricky, long putt and decided I really wanted to just make it to finish the day right. If you’d have seen the position of my ball on this green, you’d know there was no justification for the sense of confidence that overcame me. I knew I could make it. I wanted that par. I got it. I didn’t know yet how much I needed it.

We put our clubs away, changed our shoes, turned in our scorecards and headed into the luncheon. Our foursome, “gallery” and one other guy they knew sat at the same table. He commented that he really expected to come here and win. I told him that he wasn’t alone in that feeling since he was playing against a group of people who were all champions of some club. I thought we all came to win. As we ate, we kept looking up at the board and scores were coming in and being officially posted. There were to be prizes for the top five finishers. They had the lowest five net scores in red and the rest in black as people finished their rounds and turned in their cards and the officials filled in the blank boxes on the board. Maybe most golfers out there have experienced this process, but it was my first time.

My score (68) was in red on the board. I was so excited that I was a contender for a prize. There was another 68, two 69s and one 64. There were to be “card-offs” for second and third prize but not for first, so if no other low scores came in, I was assured at least some prize. My excitement grew as my table-mates explained all this to me and started prematurely congratulating me. Then, someone noticed that the 64 was gone! We all searched for it on the board and discovered that in its place was a big “DQ.” I didn’t need anyone to tell me that didn’t mean Dairy Queen. (I found out later that the guy had submitted his net score from which the officials deducted his handicap to get the 64.) Holy crap. There were only two blank spaces left to fill in with scores and I’m tied for first! Both blanks were filled with marks in the 70’s.

My mouth became very dry and I kept gulping swallows of nothing. I went to get another beer. Odd that I wasn’t nervous before the round nor when I thought I was placing in the top five but upon discovering I had won the whole thing (with a co-champion) I was a temporary wreck. Maybe, like my thought about why I wasn’t nervous at the start, it was because I didn’t shoot a record round and was just shocked that it was enough to win and somehow felt undeserving because of that. I regained my nerves before they called me up but I couldn’t stop smiling and occasionally giggling and I tried to resist clapping my hands in giddiness. They took pictures of us with the trophy for the magazine and the room cleared out fast except for the winners’ tables. We hung around for a few minutes and exchanged e-mails for photos and that was it. I drove back to my parents’ house alone, made a few excited phone calls and took a nap. I guess I did my celebrating the night before.

Champion of Champions – Isn’t it pretty?!?

The other prize for first place was this money clip. Not sure what I’m going to do with that. Maybe next year it’ll be a compact or a purse and the men will face this dilemma.

Looking Back

Upon reflection, it wasn’t just that awesome putt on my 18^th hole that did the trick. Number 16 is a semi-blind, long par 3 with OB left, right and front. The hounds were upon us, and even split up to the tee and the green to try to better manage this potential delay maker. The first guy teed off and went OB. He hit another and we could see that it was in play. My playing partner went next, and the ball went left out of our view, but hound #2 said it was in play on the cart path to the left. I hit next, and my ball left our view to the right of the green, either towards the bunker or the house (I sure wouldn’t want to be sitting on that back patio) and not even the hounds could see it to tell if it was in play or not. After my fellow female competitor went next and played it safe and short left, I declared a provisional, which I promptly sent out of bounds to the right where we could all clearly see it cross over. I hit a third, which went left but I saw it bounce and knew it would be in play even though hound #2 didn’t. If I couldn’t find my first ball in bounds, I’d be lying 5 where that shot landed. It turned out to be in a position almost anyone would be happy with on this hole: just short of the green on the left fringe for a (theoretically) easy up and down. But I had to look for my first. To my amazement, I found it well within bounds, just behind the bunker in a muddy predicament. Since we had the hounds there, I decided to use them for all they were worth (so far, just to provide intimidation) and called one over for a ruling. I thought I might be in a casual water situation, but he didn’t see any coming out from under my shoes. He did, however, lament my situation aloud as he poked and prodded at the muddy bumps and wondered if it was some kind of animal hole. I was only a couple yards from the front of the green and the pin was towards the front, but I had to cross the corner of a bunker from that terrible lie. I aimed a little left and managed to put it on the fringe with my choppy chip, then chip up and putt in to save bogie. Hallelujah. Those three strokes would have put me T6 instead of winner. Of course there were other strokes that could have made the difference, but none quite so obvious and dramatic.

Back to the daily grind

Now if only I could do more of this…
… like I did on Monday (and Sunday and Tuesday) and less of this…

… like I did on Wednesday. (Why do people live like this?) I was in snowy Chicago from Wednesday through Friday, digging my rental car out from under the previous nights’ dump on Friday morning. Saturday morning, I was back home and on the course wearing shorts for my club’s annual “Turkey Shoot.” More on that later.

Not over yet

It has been a whirlwind getting to this point and the wins have come fast and furious. We are fortunate to not really have an “off season” in Southern California, but I plan to make some adjustments to my game and continue practicing and improving. I’m considering seeking out some instruction, but I haven’t decided if I want to continue on being self-taught or not. Maybe I could improve faster with instruction, but I’m not sure. If so, how much faster and would it be worth it?

Next post.

Last Monday, December 5, I played in the SCGA Tournament of Club Champions (TOCC), Vice President flight. When I won my own club championship to qualify to go, I had mixed feelings. Of course I was thrilled to have won, and I was at once excited and nervous to go as my club’s representative. The fact that I am the only woman on the club also entered into my mind. When I found out there would only be three women in the TOCC of almost 100 contestants, again I was conflicted. I love a challenge, but the pressure was on. Fortunately, I seem to perform better under pressure.

Expectations

At first, I thought I would be happy to just “represent” and come in somewhere in the middle of the pack. Then I thought it would be okay as long as I didn’t embarrass myself and my club. That meant my expectations had dropped to the point of being satisfied with not coming in last. As the day grew closer, my expectations rose as they always do. By the time the tournament date arrived, I wanted and intended to win it all. (Although I think underneath I was preparing myself emotionally to be disappointed, just in case. Yes, I am neurotic.)

Preparing like the amateur I am

The week before the tournament, I was at the range every day and my performance there actually threatened to undermine my confidence. I took solace in the fact that the daily swing would at least help keep me in the groove. Plus, I don’t think the results were as bad as they seemed. It’s so hard to tell at the range. Like when I’m on the course and I see my shot go left of my target, it’s usually not as left as I think. But on the range, sometimes you don’t get the opportunity to really know where it wound up in relation to anything.

The Southern California Golf Association (SCGA) is our regional official golf entity like the USGA is national. They organized the tournament so that it was split up into three flights: Championship (2.5 index or less to compete in a gross event), President (2.6 — 8.9 index to compete in a net event) and Vice President (9.0 — 24.4 index to compete in a net event). Each flight played at a different private country club and had its own set of winners and awards. I played in the Vice President flight, of course, which was held at the El Camino Country Club. They allowed players onto the course to play practice rounds for a nominal fee for 10 days before the event. In my efforts to prepare, I took advantage of that opportunity.

Now, this club is about three hours drive from where I live, but only a half hour past my parents’ house. So, while we were down there for Thanksgiving, Greg and I went and played a practice round the day after Thanksgiving. The player information sheet I read said all play would be from the white tees, so of course I played from the whites in my practice round. We started kind of late and only made it through 15 holes before it got dark. I did lousy, but not as lousy as it felt. (I find that every time I play, I expect to do as well or better than the last and if I don’t I’m disappointed. I have to rein in those thoughts to keep the self-flagellation to a minimum.)

Fortunately, I had another reservation to play a practice round the day before the tournament. By that time, I had been told the women would be playing from the green (forward) tees and they just didn’t have it on the player info sheet because they weren’t expecting women in the tournament. So this time, I played the green tees in my practice round. And, for only the second time in my golf “career,” I broke 90. I shot a solid 89 on a course with a rating of 74.7, slope 132. Sweet. I thought if I could manage a repeat performance, or anywhere close, I’d have a good chance of finishing strong in the tournament. I took notes of trouble spots, prime targets, green slopes and tricky pin placements (they had marked the greens with a red spot where the pins would be the following day) but the real benefit of the practice round for me is not walking into a totally foreign environment. Familiarity is key to my comfort level. Greg played that round with me and celebrated afterward but he returned to work on Monday and did not join me at the tournament to be my “caddie.”

The Situation

Before I won my own club championship, my index was 24.6 (to play in the TOCC, the maximum allowed index is 24.4). At the time of my club championship, I had it down to 22.7, so I was in there. That was in October. My November index was down to an even 19, and my December index is now 18.8. So I didn’t know which index they were going to use to calculate my course handicap at the TOCC. It turned out that their policy was to use the lowest out of the preceding few months, which was 19.

In my post about my club championship round, where I knew all the players, I mentioned that my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking. For some reason, that wasn’t the case at this tournament. I was actually more relaxed at the competition round than the practice round. I felt good. Confident. Eager. Surrounded by unfamiliar competitors, I was strangely at ease. Maybe it was because I figured that in this crowd, someone would have to shoot a record round in order to win and all I could do was my best. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that, unlike my club’s format of match play, this was stroke play and I would have no way of measuring my standing except against my own foursome. Speaking of that foursome, they were a nice group. One of the other women in the tournament was in it, who had a slightly higher index (maybe low 20’s) and I think the two men both had slightly lower indexes than mine. She had her husband there who was helping her out with some caddie-type advice, which was allowed, and he was the gallery for the rest of us. All in all, I think it was a pretty well arranged group. Kudos to the SCGA for that. My cart partner had only one arm and he had one of the smoothest swings I’ve ever seen. He mentioned that he had some trouble keeping a grip on the club in the rough, especially irons, so he had to use woods in those situations. There were some less than great holes, but we all played pretty well overall and really had a fun time.

The Round

It was a shotgun start and our foursome began on the 3^rd hole. There is a giant eucalyptus tree protecting the fairway, especially from the angle of the green tees. I hit the snot out of the ball right up the right middle, directly into the branches, which brought my ball straight down. That cost me a lot of yardage, but it stayed in the fairway and it was a great feeling swing and hit to start the round. Steady as she goes, I wasn’t playing as well as the day before but I was playing steady and avoiding disasters. My driver was working – I had a couple of pop-ups that lost distance, but overall I was hitting pretty straight. All my clubs were working pretty well, in fact. On one hole, I got a chance to execute my 4-iron punch shot I had spent a lot of time on at the range in the previous days. While I’d rather not be in that situation in the first place, the recovery was long, low and pretty. On another hole, I got to use my left handed 6-iron to avoid a falling-over-backward-in-the-bunker stance to chip onto the green. As for putting, I made a couple three-putts but a couple really nice ones as well.

The Hounds

Maybe someday I’ll refer to them and appreciate them as “rules officials” but right now, they’re merely “hounds.” After the ninth hole (our 6^th), we were greeted by a hound who informed us that we were a whole hole behind a group that was also a hole behind and that we were now being timed. The first to hit every shot had to hit within 50 seconds, followed by everyone else who had to hit within 40. Now, the group behind us wasn’t breathing down our necks. They were actually a shot or so behind us as well. They must have been warning everyone. However, I don’t think they hounded everyone the way they did us. I don’t think there were that many officials to go around. I don’t know if it’s because there were two women in our group or one guy with only one arm and they assumed we were the trouble because of that or maybe they just found us more interesting to watch because of that. It sure didn’t seem like we were playing slow and we certainly weren’t holding anyone up. Anyway, it obviously added unwelcome pressure and intimidation. They didn’t watch us from a distance, either. They were right up close and personal, almost literally breathing down our necks. They should have given us a couple more strokes for handicapping us that way. 🙂

To be continued… (it’s so long already!)

Next post.

What is the old saying? If you love something, set it free, and if it comes back… yadda yadda yadda…

I GOT MY GOOSE BACK!

My “goose” is my 5-wood (I’ll explain some day). I have mentioned that I had lost my wood swing lately and thought it might be due to the rather nifty development of my iron swing and that I knew I’d get it back at some point. I got it back during the practice round before the Tournament of Club Champions! I was so excited to hit those long second shots again. I really look forward to developing that swing and working those golf clubs so I can get the length and consistency I know they (and I) are capable of achieving.

Next post.

As the B-flight champion, I competed on Saturday against the A-flight champion in a match play round at Los Robles Greens for overall Club Champion of the Treehouse Golf Club. I felt my heart nearly pounding out of my chest on the tee of the first hole and on the last putt of the last hole. After my first shot, and what I wrote off to a healthy dose of competitive nerves, I managed to relax enough to just play my game. All my opponents leading up to this point have had significantly more experience than I and lower handicaps than mine. This time, my opponent had the most developed skill of anyone I’ve ever competed against, with the added threat of coming into the match with a lot of recent winning experience as the A-flight champ and the confidence that goes with it. I think I had him a little nervous as well, with my reputation for a steadily lowering handicap index that as of late hasn’t been able to keep up with the rate of my improvement. (I don’t tell him that I actually worry about living up to that suddenly lower index.) Plus, since I’m the only woman on the club, they require that I play from the white tees in match play, which adds even more strokes to my course handicap for that match. I’d be just as happy if they had me play from the reds and took those strokes away.

The Match-up

On the course and tees we played, my 22 index translated to 29 strokes, and his 8 translated to 9, which left me with 20 strokes. That may sound like a lot, and in stroke play, it would certainly be a bigger advantage, but look at it this way… In match play, the strokes I get are spread out over the holes — one on every hole plus an extra one on the #1 and 2 handicap holes. Now, a 22 handicap isn’t even bogey golf. My opponent has an 8 index, so theoretically, he should be making par on 10 of the 18 holes. Even with my strokes, in order to beat a par, I have to make par myself. In order to not lose to a par, I can’t do worse than bogey. I knew this was going to be a good match, and it was. Our tee-time wasn’t until 10:45, so the wind had already arrived to carry in the storm that’s on us now. It was gusty and swirling and unpredictable. Fun stuff on a golf course, right?

The Breakdown:

Hole 1: We both par, I go up one.

Hole 2: He bogeys, I triple! All square.

Hole 3: We both bogey, I go up one.

Hole 4: He par’s, I double. All square.

Hole 5: I double, He triples! I go up one.

Hole 6: Both bogey, I’m up two.

Hole 7: (#1 handicap, 2 strokes) I use my 2 strokes and double, but he birdies! I’m up one.

Hole 8: Both par, I’m up two.

Hole 9: He par’s, I birdie! I’m up three at the turn. (This was so cool, too. My drive was long but ill-placed. I had to punch out low under the branches of a tree but get it up high enough to carry a little lake to land the green, whereupon I one-putted, which is rare indeed. Sweet.)

Intermission… deedily dee dee…

Hole 10: (#2 handicap, 2 strokes) My requisite disaster hole shows its ugly face. I take a 9, he bogeys. So much for my two 2-stroke holes. I’m up two.

Hole 11: We both bogey, I’m up three.

Hole 12: We both bogey, I’m up four.

Hole 13: I bogey, he birdies. I’m up three.

Hole 14: I double, he pars. I’m up two.

Hole 15: We both bogey, I’m up three.

Hole 16: He pars. All I have to do is make a 6 foot putt for bogey and the match is mine. I let myself lose focus to a distraction and choke the putt for a double. He’s fired up, hollers and whips himself into a final frenzy. I can’t let it get to me. I’m up two.

Hole 17: He’s all fired up and hits the drive of the day a mile and right down the middle. He follows that up with a great approach and makes a great putt for birdie! If I par, I win the match. It takes me three to get on and I two putt. Solid, but I lose the hole. I’m up one.

Hole 18: He has to win the hole outright to force a playoff and he’s got the momentum. He hits another great drive and reaches the fringe of the front of the green on his second. My drive is fair. My second shot is headed for the creek on the left of the green. I’ve been hitting short and left a lot today, but the wind has been messing with both of us, especially on that approach shot. I think I see it stop before it goes in, but I’m not sure. I cross my fingers as I approach. My ball is inside the red line but not in the water. It’s a couple inches from the edge, so I don’t have a lot of room to work behind the ball and a couple of inches to the side of one of the big creek rocks. If I’m careful, I think I can get a club on it. I take a couple of practice stabs (I think I need to come down on it sharply to pop it up onto the green from its awkward angle) outside of the hazard and then go for it. It gets up there, but goes way past the hole to the back of the green, leaving me perfectly positioned for the three-putt I’d been perfecting all day. My opponent is licking his chops. The only group from our club that went out ahead of us and includes the board members is now up on the veranda watching. I’m facing a downhill putt of about 35-40 feet. I line it up and take my shot, which has good speed but the wrong line. It ends up about 5 or 6 feet from the hole with a pretty straight line. My opponent makes his first putt from just off the green and leaves it out about 4 feet. He goes ahead and finishes for par, putting the pressure on me to make the same putt I missed earlier to halve the hole for the match. Surprisingly, I’m too in the moment to think of John Daly. I don’t rush, but don’t drag it out, either, and I put it right in the hole. We shook hands and I think I exhaled all the way up to the 19th hole where I bought us both a drink or three.

As I said at the beginning, I felt my heart nearly pounding out of my chest on the tee of the first hole and the last putt of the 18^th. Fortunately and necessarily, both ended up being on the mark.

Bittersweet… (did I say SWEET?!)

Perhaps strangely, I’m kind of glad I wasted my two 2-stroke holes. Somehow that makes it seem like a more hard-fought or hard-won match. I’m also glad he won his three birdie holes. It probably would have seemed like he got gypped if he halved them to a par. The reaction to my win from the other club members was underwhelming at first. I thought maybe it was because they changed their bylaws for me so they could allow women in and now that I won they’re resentful. I told them how much I appreciated the opportunity and that I was thankful they made the change to let me in and that I would do all I could to recruit new members for next year. One person made the comment that the hope of the group was to get enough women to join that we could have our own flight. I said it was my hope to be in the A-flight next season, and that with varying handicaps, one flight for women might not work but that we’ll have to see about that if and when the time comes. After some time (and some drinks) most of them came around and seemed sincere in their congratulations, but I actually considered (after the fact) that perhaps I should have lost on purpose. Of course I’d never have done it.

The Icing on the Cake

As for the simultaneous stroke play tournament that was going on, we both played well enough to earn victories in it, too. He played to one under his handicap, with a 77 gross, 68 net, to finish second in A-flight. I played to three under my handicap, with a 95 gross, 66 net (shame about that +5 on the 10^th hole!), for a first place finish in B-flight. Sounds like a good match to me!

Our club is having an awards banquet in December after our fun Turkey-shoot nine-hole tournament. I’m told my name will be inscribed on a wall plaque at the Treehouse and that I’ll be receiving a trophy at the banquet! :)!

Represent!

Now I get to go on to represent our club at the SCGA Tournament of Club Champions on December 5. It will be at a private country club (etiquette advice, anyone?) and I’m allowed to bring a caddie. I have asked Greg to caddie for me and he seems be hip to the idea. He certainly knows my swing better than anyone and can read a green way better than I can. I seem to play a little better when he’s not with me, but it might be different if he’s not playing, too. I think it’s because I pay too much attention to his game and lose focus on mine. My fault, not his.

I can’t find much information about the tournament online and I’m only now sending in my entry application so I don’t have the package yet. So I don’t know much about it yet, however, there are two flights for the net tournament and I think it’ll be stroke play. I hope the club will allow the riff-raff in the weekend preceding the tournament so we can get at least one practice round on the course. I’m excited and I’m getting butterflies just thinking about it!

Next post.

86!

I played River Ridge Vineyard Course this morning and set a new personal best by breaking 90 for the first time – with authority. A solid 86. I actually had to adjust it to an 85 to post because I took a nine on the par 5 #11 hole. I got greedy there and made some bad decisions because I have birdied that hole before. My drive was bad (tried to chew off the corner) and I had to punch out to the fairway. My third shot which should have been my second I decided to “go for it” instead of laying up because I wanted to make up for the lost shot and… I put it in the lake. Dumb, dumb, dumb. So I was all discombobulated when I dropped and proceeded to pitch it not just over the lake but over the green, where it took me two more hacks to get on the green and then I two-putted. ARGH.

I had a birdie, three pars, three bogeys and two doubles for a 42 on the front nine, and I was so excited. Then I doubled on #10, and after the disaster on #11 I thought my record round was over. But I pulled it together, re-grouped and followed that up with par, birdie, par, bogey, bogey, par, bogey. Solid! 7 fairways hit, 10 GIRs (all of the par 3s) and 38 putts (4 3-putts). Boy, that felt good!

Next post.

I posted an 89! The SCGA doesn’t keep records of asterisks, but if it did, it would see that 89 was an adjusted score. So, I broke 90, but I still haven’t broken 90. Since there was an 8x in there as well, I don’t really know what my actual score would have been, but probably no more than 92. Either way, it’s a record round for me because up until now, I had not even come close to 90. I was playing from the white tees at Moorpark Country Club, (Canyon Crest/Ridgeline), which is rated 75.0/128 for women. I had 8 pars! On the front nine (Canyon Crest) I was 4 over after 8 and then doubled that on the par 5 #9 with a 9 (adjusted to 8). All my disaster holes were the par 5’s, where I usually kick butt. Maybe because on this course they’re longer than I’m used to so I’m trying to do too much with each shot and spazzing my way up to the green. I might be able to drive as long as some men, but my follow up clubs are not as solid yet. I know some would argue that’s why I should be playing from the reds, and I actually intended to, but the guys I was playing with were already split up between the blues and the whites and I didn’t want to add another tee stop to our round.

Bragging Rights

Speaking of those guys, they invited me to play skins with them after the first 9, and I was hesitant because of the difference in our experience levels, but went ahead with it anyway. So we played the back nine and went on to get in as many as we could on the third nine (Creekside) and ended up with 15 holes for our skins game. Totaling up skins, polies, greenies and sandies, the final tally was 10-9-4-1. I even forced a carry over with a clutch birdie (I think I had a polie there that I didn’t count, too). I didn’t end up taking that hole because one of my opponents tied it up with a sweet par 2 holes later. So, I didn’t owe anyone and they all had to pay me, plus, I’m told I have bragging rights now. Hence the bragging! Thanks, guys — that was fun!

Personal best with an asterisk?

I had a huge fight with my boyfriend over my score from this round. I know, I know, that’s what we fight about? He wasn’t there to see how well I was playing, so I had to relay the account of the round. My first words were “I shot a 90 today.” (I hadn’t adjusted my 9 yet). There was my mistake. According to Greg, since the 90 included an 8x, I should have said “I shot an adjusted 90 today.” And, according to him, I can’t claim it as my personal best because I don’t know what my actual score was. Before this 90*, my best score was the 98 from the whites at Mountain View, which is a shorter and less difficult course. That was only about a month and a half ago and was the first time I’d broken 100 on a real (non-executive) course. I’m happy with my progress. Why isn’t he? I felt like he was trying to diminish my accomplishments and wear down my confidence. He convinced me that he’s actually really proud of me and that it’s just a matter of accuracy. Still, he didn’t have an answer for what to call my personal best now. Am I supposed to say my best is still that old 98 or maybe “somewhere in the low 90s”? What do I tell myself to shoot for when I’m goal setting before a round – “today I want to break 90-ish”? What’s it to him? Well, I came up with the answer the very next day when we played together at Mountain View. I shot a solid, non-adjusted 91 from the whites which I can now claim as my official personal best. Hah. So, I broke the “low 90-s” target. I wonder what would have happened if I had been shooting for that 89 or 90 I wanted to have in my head.

The whole thing is silly, because even though it’s a better official score, I know that my round at Moorpark was better golf. So when I say my personal best is 91 at Mountain View, I’ll be thinking Moorpark. And in my handicap records, I still posted an 89.

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Last night I had a very realistic and vivid golf dream.

Now, I don’t normally remember courses hole for hole and sometimes don’t even remember the hole once I’m standing at the tee again. Greg is amazing at doing this. He can remember every golf hole and every course layout he’s ever played and how he has played it. I wish I had that ability, because that kind of information would really be useful! The only ones I can picture or describe are the two where I got aces, the nine par 3s at Sinaloa (because I’ve played them dozens of times) and a few at Westlake (again, because of repetition). When really pressed or reminded by Greg, I might be able to conjure some sketchy and uncertain details in my mind. Even when I take pictures, that doesn’t cover the whole hole, and I often don’t remember the unseen portion. When I recognize a hole from the tees or a picture from the tees, that doesn’t mean I know what’s beyond what I can see and how I should play the hole. If I’m ever in a really competitive situation, I would definitely want to play the course first and take some serious notes. But I digress.

As I was saying, last night I had a very realistic and vivid golf dream. I’ve been awake for awhile now so I can’t be sure, but I feel like the course was Soule Park in Ojai, CA. (The dream also inspired the Soule Park post.) Now that I’m awake, I can only summon a couple of images from this course: the gaping ravines and broken cart paths and bridges that washed away in all the rains, and the little par 3 (might be #10 since it’s right near the clubhouse) with the elevated tees going over what used to be a lake but drained into the river during the storms. In my dream, it was all fixed up. I could see every shot on every hole clearly and played a really good round. However, I don’t think I saw any of the putting so it might not have been that good of a round after all.

Every shot was clean and went right where I wanted. Even though I didn’t develop any muscle memory with those shots, I still feel like it was good practice. If the power of the subconscious can recall things I can’t remember when awake, it must also work the other way, right? Maybe those swings will get ingrained in my subconscious and materialize on a real course. I can almost feel it now. Now I just need some subconscious putting practice!

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It’s official. Yesterday was my one year anniversary of my first round of golf. I’m told that means I’m now a veteran golfer. I guess now that I can’t claim to be a beginner, my 24 handicap just means I suck. All the more reason to improve each time I play, or at least really really try.

So how did I celebrate? By putting that handicap to good use and winning my match play round in yesterday’s tournament at Camarillo Springs with the Treehouse Golf Club. Some other club members led me to believe beating my opponent would be a cakewalk. (They also told me to bring him a pack of Marlboro lights and buy him shots of tequila from the cart girl, but I had to challenge myself to win “fair and square.”) Of course, they had exaggerated and he showed up with his A-game. We both blew the first hole and tied it, then I blew the second and went down one. I won the next two holes and never was down again. However, I was up three after nine when he really turned it on. He went on a par tear and really made me work for it. I didn’t one-putt all day and his putting was on fire. I only won four holes on the back and was only up one after 17 so he could have tied it. We both bogeyed 18 so I would have won one-up but I got a stroke on that hole so ended it up two.

I also took second place in the stroke play. Guess who took first? My opponent in match play! Well good for him. I think he won $10 more than I did by taking first, and I get to continue onto the semifinals toward the club championship (and the finals for my flight). He can have the ten clams. I’m a golfer now.

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