Golf Day

Unscheduled...

Well, I'm getting to go out and play the first round in awhile this afternoon. I didn't get to work on the 6-iron as much as I would have liked, but this was an unexpected golf outing, so I'll make sure I get to the course early enough to hit a few on the range and putt to make sure that stroke is ready to take on 18 holes.

The difficultly with being a high handicap golfer is that you don't work on your game as much as you'd like, but part of that is simply time constraints. Between work and home responsibilities, there isn't much time to pop out to a course. Having some training tools at home helps, however, I still don't hit into the net as much as I should.

Planning for success

Professional golfers play typical rounds under par and we'll talk more about this later. A nice round of 67 is 5 under par for most golf courses, which means that even the pros aren't going after every flag. Hazards come into play on most holes, sand, water, forced carries, all of those factor into the decision making process. My goal for today is to simply break 90 for the first time ever.

We'll be at Cape Fear National today. I have played this course before, so I have familiarity on my side, but I'm going to review the course flyovers and scorecard before I go just the same.

Based on my last round, I know where my weaknesses are and how I plan to correct that. I know what types of holes are giving me the most trouble, so here's how my process is going to go today:

• Par 3s - No more than 13 on these. There's four of them, so par has to be the name of the game, but I am leaving myself one bogey potentially. Depending ton the pin location, I'm going for a birdie on number 8. My last two times out, I have made bird. Success instills confidence.
• Par 5s - Also four here. The two on the front 9 are fairly challenging and require some precision, even if I'm just laying up and trying to be on the green in regulation (although number 2 forces your hand a little off the tee.) The two on the back 9 are a little less stressful. I'm allowing myself 23 shots here (+3), but I want to par number 11.
• Putting - I have already accounted for 16 putts, assuming I stick to the "no more than 2-putt" philosophy and can execute. That allows for 36 putts, my last round out I had only 31, but that wasn't at this course.
• Par 4s - At least two birdies. Numbers 1, 7, 10, 12 are the best opportunities here. I have done well on the 12th hole before. As one of the shortest, it's very do-able.
• Leave it short - My last time out I flew some greens with my short irons which made for some difficult chips. As long as there are no forced carries over water or bunkers, best bet, leave it short of the green for a little bump and run action.
• In play off the tee - I put the ball in play 3 of 4 drives my last time out. One of those was a short pop into the sky another cost me a penalty stroke. I will probably hit the driver at least once, but mostly, I'm going to select the club that gives me the best chance to get in play.

Just a little math

My goal is 36 strokes on the par-3s and 5s, which takes into account 16 of my 36 goal putts. Two birdies on par-4s makes 6 more for 42. Two-putting the par-4s gives me 20 more strokes for 62. That leaves me 27 shots on 10 par-4 holes to get on the green and make 89. Getting on greens in regulation (2 shots) takes some pressure off, but there is definitely some wiggle room here.

Time to get my bag together and head to the course in a bit. Wish me luck!