Sunday, September 26, 2010

You Can't Out-Drive a Grizzly

In case you were wondering, I hit three balls over 300 yards today at Whiskey Creek.  Not sure if that a record for me or not, but it sure felt good.
I hit this green!!!

Without question, the highlight of the round was my tee shot on number eight.  The hole is a short par 4 that you can play one of two ways: an iron or hybrid off the tee to leave a 100 yard approach, or fly the ball over 220 yards and contend with a well bunkered green.  I was coming off of a terrible bogey on 7, and my Dad and I were three down in our match.  I had a little aggression and it was time to unload.

I walked up to the tee and realized that the hole was playing about 25 yards shorter than normal.  It was about 315 downwind.  JP, a conservative golfer through and through, bailed out to the right with his three wood and left himself a 80 yard approach shot.  That wasn't going to be me.  I grabbed the big dog and swung away.  C R U S H E D.  I started the ball right down my line at the greenside bunker and for just a moment, I thought I would land right in it.  By no means would I have been disappointed by that, but then things got better.  Instead of my usual fade, the ball started drawing.  All of a sudden I realized that this ball had a real shot at making the green.  The ball landed 5 feet short of the green, took a big hop right at the hole, checked up a bit, then trickled towards the pin. 

When we got up to the green, my ball was about 15 feet from the hole.  It was a pretty straight, uphill putt.  I hit the putt well, but it just burned the right edge of the hole and left me with a tap in birdie.  Not bad if I do say so myself. 

My longest drive of the day came on number 14.  The hole is one of the prettiest on the course: an elevated tee box plays down into a narrow fairway with water and bunkers left, thick rough, trees, and mounds right.  There was a pretty steady 5-10 mile per hour wind coming from the right, which let me hit my typical fade without worry.  I took aim at a tall tree on the right hand side of the fairway, about 210 yards out and let it rip.  My ball cleared the tree by a good 20 feet and continued down the right hand side of the fairway.  Eventually we lost the ball behind the tree and I was left to speculate that the ball ended up somewhere right along the rough/fairway line.  When I got down to where I thought my ball should be I was perplexed.  It was no where to be seen.  It took a good two minutes of searching before I noticed a ball 25 yards in front of me, right in the middle of the fairway.  I can only imagine that the ball must have had a nice litter run to it, but either way, its not every day that you hit a golf ball 325 yards.  It felt good.

Thanks in larger part to my driver, I put together a scrappy 86 today.  I was consistent with all the clubs in my bag except for my putter, and managed to finish the day with only one double bogey.  The rest were pars and birdies.

We still ended up losing the match but hey, when you can hit the ball like I did today, it sure feels like a win.




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