And we are back. Golf season is here, my personal life has settled down and I’m back to learning lessons on the golf course.
Last Saturday was my club's “Welcome Back to Golf” , a 4 man scramble from our regular tees to help knock some of the rust off. There was plenty of rust to be knocked off, but we had a lot of fun and played reasonably well. I played with 2 guys I don’t know super well. They had 2 and we had 2, and I had played with Brian previously. He’s a 4 handicap, and the reason I was excited to play with him is because we played together in the club championship last year, and he made a 7 and followed it up with a 12. From there, he shot a 35 on the back and was a delight to play with.
He mentioned the surprise at me inviting him due to the 12, but honestly, it was his attitude after the 12 that made me want to play golf with him more. I wasn’t surprised at all that we had a fun round out there, even if it took over 5 hours. Neither Brian nor I were hitting much close, so we had lots of 10-20 footers for birdie that we couldn’t get to drop. We had one bogey all day, and it was on a par 3 on our 17th hole. Most importantly we had a lot of fun.
My biggest takeaway from the day was one of strategy. Smart golf continues to be smart even in a scramble. While there are the occasional green lights to do something silly, most of the time the smart thing to do is hit a good shot, and hope it ends up close to the hole. Low percentage plays continue to be low percentage, even if you already have a ball on the green.
A good example of this would be an approach shot about 5 holes into the event. Our higher handicap partner had hit a great shot and left us maybe 10 feet downhill for birdie. Instead of aiming at my usual target (right of the pin, towards the center of the green) I took dead aim at the pin and was about 5 yards left of target. Instead of having 2 balls on the green and giving us possibly an easier birdie putt, my ball was out of play left of the green.
My best swing of the day was at a center pin, I was still 10 feet off target, but we had a look at birdie. Had the pin been on the right side of the green, my ball would have missed the green. I like to believe I understand modern golf theory, so it amazes me how poorly I implement it when given the chance.
As a 5ish handicap, I think I am in an interesting spot where I am a good enough ball striker that I have some control over the ball, but the reality of golf is I never have as much control as I think. I had multiple opportunities in the round to go pin seeking as the person hitting 3rd or 4th, my best shot of the day was from 60 yards out and ended up about 5 feet from the hole… and if I’m being honest, was not the shot I intended to hit (it came out low and nippy, I was trying to hit it high… it worked out!).
The scramble as a whole showed me a few things. The first is simply that golf is hard. Even with 4 attempts on every ball. Someone still has to put it in play, and even when you get onto the green you have to make a putt. The flip side to that is how many easy pars we made. Never much fancy, just get the ball onto the green and 2 putt. Not every tee shot was in the fairway, and not every approach shot left a makeable birdie putt, but we only had one really bad hole all day. Birdies require that something goes right, a par is really just a culmination in not making any huge mistakes.
Hopefully, I can bring a smarter mentality with me to the next scramble I play in, but in the short term my takeaways are simply that I need to remain focused on making as many easy pars as possible, and picking smart targets. I have 18 holes of experience now firing at pins and it not helping. The bogey on the par 3 featured me trying to get cute with a chip after the previous 2 players missed the green. Had I just knocked it on the green, we would have made par.
I have always identified as an aggressive golfer, even as my strategy matures, I take delight in seemingly aggressive lines. My tolerance for risk has diminished a great deal, but I definitely have a penchant for hitting shots that take on too much risk. I need to make sure I am constantly focused on hitting shots that will work out 80% of the time, vs the shots that will be great 20% of the time.
More than anything, I am excited to be back on the golf course. I played a lot of golf last week, and it came at the expense of practice. It was a trade off I was more than happy to make, but moving forward I need to do a better job of taking the time to actually practice. I believe my game is coming along nicely, and hopefully I can find some success soon and start digging into what helped me score better on the course.