Well I guess we can’t have our cake and eat it.
I finally played a round without the dreaded triple bogey.
I also finally played a round this year without a birdie. Final score of 48-43, at The Glenmarie Gardens, with 5 pars and a pile of missed putts and a ton of bunker shots.
For some weird reason I have never been able to get the better of the Garden course. I don’t know why. Maybe we underestimate it because from the onset it doesn’t look difficult. But by golly, I am always struggling on it! And today is the same reason, even after taking up the 5 wood tee-off to avoid trouble, I still found bunkers after bunkers. I counted. That is crap load of bunkers. The upside is that my bunker play has recently improved tremendously. I have this old Cleveland 60 degree with just the right bounce on it for Malaysian bunkers and it digs/slide perfectly through. I say Malaysian bunkers because oftentimes, we have that hard layer of wet sand just at the bottom of the top layer. So if you use your Sandwedge, it just hits that wet sand and skulls our ball whereas the 60 degree is able to dig in a little and allow that follow through. In fact it came to a point that I was looking forward to hitting to greenside bunker just so I can try to get up and down for fringes! I was 2 feet away from a Sandy par but putted like a chipmunk.
Speaking of putting – my love affair with the MYR40 Ping putter is coming to an end. I missed TONS of putts today. Either I whiffed it, or didn’t hit it firm or just couldn’t feel it. But like in everything golf, just when you have given up on something, on the last hole, a crucial game wining putt of around 5 feet – managed to sink it and the love affair with the putter begins again. Aiya. Always like that one.
I did have birdie opportunities, though not tons – I think I had 3 clear look at birdies within 10 feet putting and dreadfully squandered all of them.
However – keeping the triples off the card was key and definitely helps. I think its a combo of poor putting and bunker attraction today. In the first 9 itself, I hit bunkers in 8 holes. Reflected in a dreadful score. In second nine, limit to only 3 holes, and once more , the score was 5 strokes better.
Glenmarie is playing quite nice, if not the greens pretty slow, and it seems their caddy service has also improved. Remember the last time we had caddies who stole money from our bags? This guy was one caddy between 4 of us and he was good. Reading the green, distance, getting the right clubs, finding balls.
Best shot of the day? The bunker shot on hole 1 (our 10). It was a high lip and with the 60 degree, I put it perfectly to 2 feet away from the hole. I missed the putt, hell ok – but it is exactly that sort of bunker shot I envisioned and for once, perfectly executed.
Felt good!