So today I went with R after work to repeat the challenge. To be honest I was expecting it to be easy. Its only a 9 hole and the yardage's look ok. The weather was fine but it had been raining a lot and the course was very damp.
Hole 1 down a hill dogleg right and over a large ditch. I hit my tee ok with my new stance. Then I hit a nice approach to the green and lost one in the deep wide ditch.
Hole 2 a narrow start with a slight dogleg left. I hit a duff off the tee. This unnerved me and I immediately tried to switch back to my odd sideways stance, that didn't work either. Hey ho thats golf.
Hole 3 is a par 3 with a pond in front of the green. I did a duff off the tee and the ball landed in a bog. I duffed it into the pond, took a penalty and hit another into the pond as well. I gave up and walked past the pond to continue.
Hole 4 A long straight par 4. I duffed the tee shot (see the pattern) and struggled to the pin.
Hole 5 is along par 3. I did ok on this getting to the green in 2.
Hole 6 turned out to be a long uphill dogleg right. (We thought it went left) I struggled on this with a duff from the tee. We were being followed by 2 golfers so I suggested that (as we had limited time) we should start again at hole 1 and see if we could correct the errors.
As soon as we started from hole 1 again 2 new golfers appeared.. grr.. As it happened I only improved on the first hole (not losing one in the ditch this time but going over the back instead). On the 3rd I again lost 2 balls one from the tee and one following a duff. So that was 5 balls lost and 4 in 1 pond. When we completed the 6th for the second time I was in 2 minds wether I had time to do the last 3 holes. Anyway the 7th is a long par 5 with a valley off the tee. R did a nice drive and I hit one from the tee into the hedge. That was enough.. I gave up and left R to finish. No scores as I did not finish...
So my new stance did not work and my old one didn't ether. I got home pretty despondent. hey ho. On reflection I was not ready to change stance (it brings with it unreliability which I have just about removed from my game). Also I think this course has a few challenges and this is worse in the wet. I have no idea how me and M ever got round this on our first outing.
I have a feeling that I may never be able to play some courses that require a big hit off the tee. What next?
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| Looking from tee number 1 |
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| The 2nd fairway with leaves (very wet!) |
