Handicap:20
Gross: 92
Net: 72
Verdict: Moments of awesomeness in between bouts of severe stupidity and crappiness.
What Happened
After literally being abused by the two most devilish courses this side of the world, the constipated Seri Selangor and Rahman “Watery Grave” Putra, we thought of expending some of our severely limited talents to some courses we call “Self Esteem Courses”, meaning, they were supposed to help boost our completely devastated self worth in this game. We need some of these courses now and then to ensure that we are still alive and that this game is worth spending money on. Kinrara, with its stunted par 4s and wide fairways definitely fall into this category, so away we went, hoping (like any other time we tee up this white ball) to play the best game ever.
This game had its moment of awesomeness, none more than the first hole, when a good tee shot saw myself about 90 meters from the extremely accessible green. 3rd shot pitch with my 60 degree landed soft on the green, and then saw my friend jumping up and down like a tasmanian devil on heat, shouting: “It’s IN! It’s IN! It’s IN!” while doing an Apache Indian Rain Dance. Welcome 2011, and welcome Mr Birdie.
The par 3 5th was almost the same, where a lousy tee shot saw me 30 meters away from the green, again, a 60 degree flop (by luck more than anything) nearly dunked the hole, and a 4 feet return putt for par.
The last hole 18th: again, a bad tee shot (see where the trend is heading?) ended up in the jungle rough on the right. It was another stroke of luck (an 8 iron through a web of trees) to get the ball out into the landing area before the huge drain fronting the green. I probably hit my best shot of the day, a pitching wedge that barely cleared the bunker, landed on the front of the green and tricked to 5 feet from the hole. Ensuing par and we were done for the day.
Other parts of the game? 3 putts on 4 holes, including the ONLY GIR hole on the 16th. Bad driving, and the only positive was that the triple bogeys were avoided.
Why I Sucked
Kinrara’s greens were in a very sorry condition. Sandy, and at times, almost unputtable, it looks like management is running out of moolahs maintaining this course. Hole 7 par 5 fairways were all hacked up due to creation of drainages, that it was almost unplayable 100-120m from the green.
But the blame of a crap game falls on the annoying shoulders of my driving. It was lamentable, and other aspects might be improving, but without any good drive, even a ‘self esteem’ course like Kinrara will eat you up and spit you out of its colon.
Not So Sucked
Irons are getting a lot better, especially 8 iron in, and no longer feels as if I am swinging an anaconda everytime. My pitching improved slightly but I’d attribute that to dumb luck, because there were embarrassing moments of duffing and topping as well. Also, my scrambling and recovery seems to have improved somewhat as well.
What to Work On
Driving, definitely. It looks like I jinxed myself a few games back when I bragged about hitting 9/14 fairways. I might hit 6/14 here, but a grand total of 0 on the back nine is an indication of a swing still in its original crap mode.