The Black

(For some pictures, check here)

The executive summary: The most difficult straight-forward course I've ever played. Tobacco Road is hard, but mainly because you can't see half of the pins or fairways. The Black is just big and hilly and has the most penalizing bunkers imagineable. However, the greens are relatively dull, and so if you have a good ball striking day you can make a decent score. Check that -- a great ball striking day.

Here are my notes/thoughts from the day:

Pregame: Get there really, really early: 8:00 for a 9:51 tee time. Maybe the earliest Wiseman has ever been to a golf event. The clubhouse is gorgeous, and looks a lot like a real country club. That said, the range is ghetto, and amazingly small for a facility that hosts 5 golf courses. The security associated with teetimes at the Black is impressive: golfers get wristbands once they pay, and the wristbands are cut off by the starter on the first tee. The weather looks dicey as we tee off.

#1: The first tee is right there where everyone is watching, and with the signs for the Open looming above it is pretty nerve racking. The first hole is 40 feet below the tee box and a sharp dogleg to the right. I hit a solid drive just into the rough at the elbow of the dogleg, but still can't see the pin. 8-iron from 138 gets pin high on left. Easy chip to 5 feet below hole, knock in putt for par. Best drive may have been Mike's, which was 75 yards left of the fairway into the fairway on the Green Course.

#2: Probably shouldn't have hit driver, because I would have rather been on flat spots. Drive into right rough, can't hit any sort of fade/cut/slide off the side hill lie, so I pull a 7 iron into the rough 50 yards short of green. Hit a 60 degree wedge to 15 feet, two-putt for bogey.

#3: Playing about 152 from the whites. I knock it 5 yards right and 5 yards past pin, two putt for par. Wiseman hits 6 iron on the front part of green and rolls in a nice 25 footer for birdie.

#4: Yarg. Something makes me hit 3 wood to try and stay short of trouble that I couldn't have reached anyways. I leak my tee shot into right rough, try and get a 4-hybrid onto the 2nd plateau, but instead hit into giant bunker. Good lie, hit a 7 iron pin high about 40 yards right of green (great angle). Hit a good chip, but three-jack for double. Just a fantastic risk/reward hole for the pros, since they have to kill a long iron uphill to reach in two, but there is a false-back to the green.

(You'll notice a theme here: missing to the right. I have no idea what the left side of the course looks like. I hit a couple of drives down the left half of the fairway, but that's it. It could be really easy over there, but I'd never know.)

#5: Bust a high fade down the middle, which is perfect for the diagonal fairway. You could hit the left side of fairway and have 250+ yards. I have 180 back uphill and hit a 4-hyrbid pin high, 15 yards right of green (magically, not in bunker). Hit another good chip and knock in the putt for par.

#6: +3 through 5 holes, and the wheels come off. Kind of a tough tee-shot, since you can't really see anything except a little sliver of fairway (hole turns left and goes steeply downhill about 225 yards off the tee). I hit a weak two-iron that leaks into the fescue, chip out into the rough on the other side of the fairway, and chunk something just short of green. Try a miraculous flop (to an absurd pin position), blade it over the green into the fescue collar of the back bunker. Try to play it from the bunker (ball was level with my chest)... miss twice, come out of the bunker and hit it lefty... back into the bunker. Hit out, two-putt for X (counts as 8 for handicap purposes).

#7: Hit a decent drive into the fairway, but am pretty far left (another diagonal fairway). Hit a terrible weak layup into right rough, but am able to muscle an 8-iron from 132 onto the back of the green. It starts pouring. POURING. I try and make my 5 footer for par with the rain pouring down, but alas I miss. Bogey.

#8: We kind of play this on the run since the group in front of us was scared by the rain. I hit another weak fade 5-iron, nearly get stymied by a tree but hit a decent chip, two-ish putts and we're off to #9.

#9: Fantastic drive down the right side, although since it's a dogleg left I'm not in the best position. (Incredible fairway... not a flat lie anywhere.) Hit another weak fade 3-hybrid about 20 yards right and 10 yards short of green. Try and punch a wedge back onto the green but come up short. Plug into the lip of the bunker (remember that rain?). And I mean "plug" and "lip". Manage to get it onto the fringe, cover myself in wet sand, chip, and hit two putts for a triple.

So I was 3 over through the first 5 holes and 9 over over the next 4 holes. Suh. Weet. At least the weather was sucky.

#10: Great tee shot down the left side. 5-iron from 180 ish comes up short into the bunker. Rain is pouring again, we wait it out under the shelter. When it starts slacking off I chunk my bunker shot (yeah wet sand), finally get out and two putt for double.

#11: Dumb stuff all around. I'm too lazy to put my glove on and hit my worst drive of the day. Amazingly I find it in the fescue and the lie is a little bare. I try and hit a 4-hybrid back out to the fairway, but the club gets twisted and I barely make it back to the "short" rough. I hit the same club and chunk it down the fairway into the left fringe. Next comes a 60 degree wedge from 70 yards. The fringe is so nice and the grass is so dense that my wedge slides right underneath the ball, so I hit a really high shot that comes up about 5 yards short of the green. You shouldn't be surprised to find that there is a bunker short of the green. And that I had a buried lie. Again. I leave first bunker shot in the bunker, finally get out (hitting the pin) and two putt for my 2nd quad of the day. That's +15 over 6 holes.

#12: Turnaround. Decent drive down the right side leaves 235 to hole (my fade really doesn't do much good on a dogleg left). I don't trust my 3-wood so I try and rip my two hybrid. I remember doing the same back when I shot 77 and adjusted my posture so that it was a little more upright. Boom! I don't quite hit it 235 (more like 220, and then it plugged). Hit a 9-iron bump and run that rolled right past the cup and onto the back fringe. Cozy a putt down the hill to an inch for a bogey.

#13: Big par 5. Leak a drive a little right, but am able to hit a 4-hybrid out of the light fescue. Have 81 yards for my 3rd shot. I hit a 3/4 54 degree wedge exactly 81 yards. Unfortunately I hit it with a ton of spin (or, at least some spin -- that should be a pitch for Vokey, since I can't spin anything) and pull it back down onto the front shelf. Run the birdie putt by 5 feet and miss the downhill slider on the comeback.

#14: Leak a 6 iron from 167 to the right. Finally figure out how to hit out of the sand and hit a great bunker shot to 10 feet. Miss the putt, but hit my 3rd bogey in a row. That's pretty good here.

#15: The hardest hole on the course, and arguably the hardest par 4 anywhere on earth. I bust my drive down the middle and am left with 175 to the hole. I play it 2-3 clubs uphill (3-hyrbid), but catch it thin and land in the rough short of the green. (I did hit a 2nd 3-hyrbid and knocked it on... it was the club.) Make a good chip, miss a 20 footer for par, end up with bogey. Feel like a champ.

#16: Hit my 2nd consecutive fairway but am rewarded with 216 into the wind. Two-hyrbid comes up into the right bunker, hit a great bunker shot to 15 feet, two putt for another bogey.

#17: Hit a nice 3-hyrbid from 195. Ball fades a bit much and am left on the lower shelf. Have to putt through the fringe, which throws me off, and end up 3-putting for bogey.

#18: Close out with yet another fairway hit. Have 153 back up the hill to a dead-front pin position. Hit a nice 7 iron that comes up just short of the green, but make an easy chip 4 feet by and make the putt. Book-end the start and finish with pars.

Holes 1-5: +3
Holes 6-11: +15
Holes 12-18: +6
Total: +24, par 71 = 95

Some notes:

I didn't lose a ball. I hit the fairway on 7 of 11 par 4s and was rewarded by getting to hit 4/3/5/2/3/2/7 iron in to the greens (hitting none of them). I only hit my pitching wedge on the driving range, and only hit one 9 iron (a bump and run).

Yarg. What a rough middle of the round... In general it's tough to see how I would score a lot better here. I can obviously replace the quads with bogeys, but I don't see a ton more pars out there: I can't expect to reach the green on many of these par 4s in regulation (I'm not that accurate with a 3-iron), so at best I can make decent chips and try for bogey-option-par. I could realistically birdie #7 and #13 (par 5s), maybe #3, maybe #1, but that's about it.

The blog is dead, long live the blog

For a variety of reasons, I'm done with the old blog about random stuff going on in my life. But I have decided to blog about golf, because I love golf and writing about golf. Sorry if that isn't your cup of tee. (HA! Tee! or Tea!)

My last days in Seattle

Here's the quick synopsis of my last week in Seattle:

Saturday: Golf at Washington National
Sunday: Basketball and sushi
Monday: Work
Tuesday: Golf at Chambers Bay
Wednesday: Lunch at Salumi, errands
Thursday: Golf at Trilogy (missed an 8 foot birdie putt for 79)
Friday: Moving, which was pedestrian, and partying (dinner and drinks with my friends in Seattle.) And in between? This:



What am I thinking leaving this?

Chambers Bay in detail

In short: sublime. I honestly may not have a better golfing experience.

The crowd sounds are going to be really cool during the Open. The entire course sits in a little bowl (it is, after all, a former gravel pit), with the highest points sitting 100-150 feet above the lowest points. The dunes provide some separation between holes, but there really isn't anything to keep sound from traveling and echoing against the pit walls. When Tiger is pouring in 30 footers on Sunday it's going to be pretty intense.

The course record is 70; I've probably never been within 16 shots of a course record, ever. I can see how the course would get to be unplayable in a hurry. The USGA could set the course up to play anywhere between -4 and +20, especially if the wind blows. I had a four putt (coming off a birdie, too), but I didn't putt into a bunker (Michael did), nor did I miss a putt by 55 yards (Stewart did). I can see pros making the exact same mistake.

I seemed to be one of the few guys with a caddy, even though it was incredibly useful. Most 2nd shots were aimed 20 yards away from where I would have aimed if left to my own devices. I really had to suspend disbelief on a couple of the shots, thinking there was no way I really wanted to hit it where he had me aimed, but sure enough, things always worked out. While I needed the caddy's advice on 18 holes, I really only had about 14 holes of conversation saved up and only 15 holes of patience for some of his advice and telling me why his advice was good. That said, I did enjoy that he thought I should be a 7-8 handicapper with my swing. He wasn't wrong (13/14 fairways, 11/18 greens), except that he hadn't seen me putt yet.

My only regret is that I played the white tees (6000 yards) rather than the Sand tees (6400). Honestly, my score probably would have been the same. I had one six-iron into the green, but I was hitting driver/wedge most of the day, and there were four holes where I didn't even need driver. In general, I drove the ball like a fiend... made some really aggressive carry shots, and I was in the greenside traps on two of the par 5s (took 3 to get out of the first), and birdied the other. I really should have birdied 15... had 8 feet and one of the Scottsman drilled his putt on the exact line.

Everyone should have a chance to be paired with two Scottish guys from Canada. Hilarious, full of good stories. Thought I would split my pants laughing when one of them said "That's crap!" like Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer. They also had the best name I've heard for a 9: "Fraulein's Rejection" (or Nein, as it were). Also fun to see how they comfortable are putting from anywhere, including 50 yards off the green in swales 50 feet below the green. They had no fear of keeping the ball on the ground the entire way.

Chambers Bay

I'll post my thoughts on Chambers Bay this evening, but here's the short story: There are probably fewer than 5 golf courses in the world that I can expect to play that will be more impressive than Chambers. I shot 86, including a birdie and a four-putt, and I played with two Scottish guys from Vancouver, which should be mandatory at a course like this, just like using a caddy.

I managed to take a bunch of pictures, which can be found here.

Fore!

I get to play this tomorrow.

Part of me is excited like a kid on Christmas Eve. And part of me wonders if I own enough golf balls. And part of me hopes I don't four-jack a green with a caddy looking on.

My favorite Christmas present

It's tough to rank Christmas presents, because they are all wonderful in their own way. But I would say the best thing I got this year is my laser rangefinder. Ostensibly it is for the golf course (it's actually called "The Pinseeker"), but since it's been too cold to play golf this year I've had to find alternative uses. Which means "stand out on my balcony and measure the distance to things." Here's what I've discovered:



The boat's mast is 576 yards away. Even down hill it's a 3-shot par five. The edge of the water on the left side of the photo is 408 yards.

The red brick apartment in the dead center of the photo is 266 yards. The yellow apartment to the left of center is 607 yards. The apartment building in the foreground is 62 yards. The Space Needle? I thought that would be just a touch out of range... but it's just at the edge. 1332 yards. Just over 3/4 miles away.

Placed on the 15 day DL

I sustained maybe the lamest injury of my 30.9 years this past Sunday. To celebrate the Redskins making the playoffs (and, as luck would have it, coming to Seattle) I decided to replace the flush and fill valves on my toilet, which has been slowly running for the past 11 months. Turns out that replacing the flush valve involves taking the bowl off the base of the toilet, which requires a lot of lying on the bathroom floor loosening old bolts*, which requires contorting myself into some weird shapes.

I woke up Monday with what is best described as a Grade 2 strain of my left hamstring. I literally hobbled around work on Monday, and couldn't actually do anything at the gym. I managed to walk 9 holes today, but it required lots of stretching. I don't know how I'm going to make it through life if I regularly injure myself by lying on the floor.

* Don't worry, I had mopped the floor prior to starting this exercise.

Ooopen post 2

The story of the 2007 Ooopen

As I mentioned in an earlier post I'm recently returned from the golf tournament that my friends and I have put on for six years now. And for the fifth time in those six years I returned home a loser.

In years past this would have put me into a tailspin of mild depression for a couple of weeks. With excruciating detail I can discuss how my poor play in previous Ooopens cost my team a chance to win:

1. In the first Ooopen I celebrated too soon after securing at least a draw after winning the 17th hole, quickly lost my concentration, and lost 18, costing us a win in fourball.
2. (I actually played well in Ooopen 2, going 3-1-0)
3. In the third Ooopen I was my team's sacrificial lamb in singles, but was even with Dooley (a far superior player) going to the 15th hole. I missed a 3 foot putt that would have put me 1-up. Instead I lost 16, miraculously pushed 17, but couldn't get the job done on 18. I also played atrociously on the par 3s (two doubles, two bogeys), which ended up costing my team the tiebreaker. I yelled at myself for four hours driving home. To this day I could walk you to the exact spot on the green where I missed that putt.
4. My team got blitzed in the fourth Ooopen 7-1, but I Franko and I had a lead against Dooley and Wiseman in the first round going to the 16th hole and lost. Things went downhill from there
5. My team won Ooopen 5. It was great. I still bask in the glory.

Which leaves me with Ooopen 6. I had incredibly high hopes going in. I was the first to arrive in Myrtle, and after picking up the keys to the house I got in a practice round. Shot 83, including birdies on the two hardest holes. It was arguably my best round of golf ever. We spent most of Friday hurrying up to wait... we arrived at the course early, early enough to watch it rain for about an hour. Then we got to wait as they sent out the other crazy people who waited around. Then, well, it started to rain again and they shut the course. The Ooopen did not get off to a very fast start. We made the most of our free time, including introducing some of the Yankee Ooopen participants to Bojangles. It also says a lot about the group of people that we bring together that we had a day of golf rained out and no one got very upset.

Day two started before dawn. My alarm went off at 6am and the sun was still an hour away from rising above the Atlantic. By the time it did we were on the golf course rather than on the beach. Despite gloomy skies and a waterlogged golf course the Ooopen finally got underway. I was paired with Wiseman (undefeated for two years, easily the best record in Ooopen history), and we played great golf. We were playing fourball against Tim Doyle and Chris Zimmer, and we never let them into the match. As a best ball team we shot 38 on the front nine, making seven pars and two bogeys, and made the turn with a four hole lead. Five pushes later and we had a 5&4 victory. Unfortunately the other Marchers (our team decided to call itself Sherman's March) didn't get off to quite the same start (it's tough to beat a guy who gets 15 strokes and shoots 102), and we found ourselves down 2-1.

I'll be honest: I have almost no recollection of my afternoon match. I know that it was back and forth, I know that I played pretty poorly, and I know that Rupert and Zim (my opponents) played pretty well. The loss hurt, but unlike previous matches I can't point to a hole where I made a shot I wish I could have back. The real story from the afternoon was the Jordan/Swennes vs. Feeney/Contarino match. It featured one player making three 10s in a row. Jordan and Bobby were down 11 points at the 8th hole, and came back to tie the match. It's tough to explain how big of a comeback this is, but it's easily the biggest comeback in Ooopen history. Incredible stuff.

Sunday dawned with my team trailing 3.5-2.5. Sunday would end with my team trailing by the same amount. Once again I came up short, although I don't feel as bad about it as other losses I've taken. I challenged Drew Fine, who is easily the best golf in the group. He shot 83. I shot 91. No one else broke 90 on the day. I was frustrated that despite knocking in nearly every fairway I couldn't give myself easy pars. The loss sucked, but it wasn't as devastating as years past.

So I drove out of Myrtle more ambivalent about the Ooopen than each of the previous four years. I think my lack of competitive fire this year was driven by two factors: first, I planned all the golf, so I spent most of the weekend worrying about logistics; second, the win last year released so much pent up stress that I could actually enjoy the event rather than focusing on the competitive aspects. I don't know how I feel about that.

Ooopen post 3: Was winning last year really the biggest accomplishment of my post-college life? Where else can I find an outlet for my competitive streak?

Ooopen post 1

(Yeah, I own those pants.)

People who don't like my golf stories will likely not be interested in the next few blog posts, as I'll be recapping and waxing poetic on the Ooopen Championship, which is the little golf tournament that my friends put on each year.

First post: photos. Click here to see the Championship in pictures.
Next post: The story of the 2007 Ooopen.
Next next post: Was winning the 2006 Ooopen my most significant post-college accomplishment?

What really annoys me is that this cost me a round of golf

I joke with people that they can plan for rain whenever I've made a tee time. When I woke up this morning I thought my prophecy would once again come true: it was cloudy and cold and ominous. But then the clouds started to clear, and while it remained cold it turned into a promising afternoon. So I was excited as I drove a couple of blocks to pick up my friend Cory.

I was considerably less excited when I got about halfway through the intersection of 1st Ave and Broad St. Basically, this happened:



Yeah. I got in an accident. And as a result I didn't get to play golf today, which may or may not have caused all of the clouds to burn away and temps to rise into the mid 60s. I spent most of my afternoon on the phone with my insurance company (actually not the worst experience in the world). I was surprised how many people asked whether anyone was hurt in the accident. I laughed it off and said no, and wondered why no one asked whether or not I missed a tee time. How rude.

Anyways, this is what my fender is supposed to look like:



And this is what my fender actually looks like:




Yarg. Now I have to decide between golf and football tomorrow. Booooo!

Everywhere I've ever played golf (that I can remember)

Google Maps is pretty much da bomb.


View Larger Map

While I've played a lot of courses, I haven't actually played in that many places (15 states so far). I feel a big road trip coming to knock off a lot of the midwest.

Huan is ruining lives

To say that Huan has "blown up" since arriving in Seattle is an understatement. How many writers for alt-weeklies become world-renowned freak dance experts? His stories have been skewered by the blogosphere* before publication and some cover art of a story he wrote pissed off parents throughout the city and made the evening news.

But now he's getting people fired.

That's not a true statement at all. Uptight Seattlites have decided to fire people, most likely based on a story Huan wrote. I found it much more creepy that the high school girls invited Huan to the prom for 30 seconds before he pointed out that it would be "weird." Sadly, he would have been my second post-college roommate to attend prom had the invite been accepted.

All this comes just a week after the wife of a friend of ours got pissed at Huan for writing about Safeco Field's absurd "red card" fan behavior tool and mentioning our friend by name. She was convinced that he would summarily be fired after it became public knowledge that he had both A) gone to a baseball game and B) had a beer.

Why the recap of Huan's Seattle reign of terror? Because I'm terrified of what might happen after he comes golfing with Tyler H and I on Sunday. Theoretically he's going to write about the course, but I'm sure it will be misinterpreted in a way that will cost me my job. Or, worse, get me banned from the golf course.

* I despise the term blogosphere. It's not like the the Interwebs are a physically distinct world that emits commentary. It's easier to publish via the web than via pamphlet, but it's the same idea. Thus that is that last time that the b-word shall be used here.

9-5-6-7-8-6-7-4-7 is not a phone number

My friend Will tells a really good story about realizing that there is such a thing as a "good" double bogey in golf. He made this realization while playing Bethpage Black, which is rated the 6th most difficult golf course in the country.

None of my four doubles yesterday could be considered "good" double bogies.

I am really hoping that the damage from yesterday's round ended when I climbed into the dry cocoon of my car, because I haven't broken 100 (in the bad way) since May 8, 2005. The last time I shot higher than 102 was May 23, 2004. Was yesterday my Mickelson at Winged Foot moment?

There are pretty good signs that it won't be. The first mitigating circumstance was the weather. It was awful. If I had brought my camera it would have produced a picture approximately like this:

The rain in Seattle is generally supposed to be intermittent... there are rare days when it rains constantly, and yesterday happened to be one of those days. I was as well equipped for the weather as I could be... rain jacket, umbrella, quick drying action pants, rain gloves, etc. But at the end of the day you can't escape the fact that standing outside in the rain for five hours just sucks. The next time you are in the shower imagine playing golf in identical conditions. As being in the shower. Miserable. And as many of you know, I am not an all-weather type guy. I can deal with wind on the golf course, but not rain.

The other factor that makes me believe this was a temporary hiccup in my quest for the 70s is that I came back relatively strong on the back 9. My tee shot on 3 was my 15th shot of the round. My chip onto 13 green was my 15th shot of the back 9. I joked with Tyler H. that I was going to improve by 20 shots on the back... I didn't quite get that far, but I did improve by 13 (59-46).

The funny thing is that while I was busy losing balls (7 for the round, which is a personal worst in the last 4 years) Hobbs was going low. He hit a joke of a chip on #1 that went in the hole, and birdied #3. He went out in 38, but my quality golf seemed to rub off on him and he regressed to a 46 on the back. Still, his 84 beat my 105 by, um, a lot. More than the 6 strokes he gave me in skins.

(Our playing partners actually had to ask the marshal to bring them more golf balls on the 13th hole... I've never seen this actually happen before, but it did. They moved up and started playing the white tees. The marshal then told me (thinking I was requesting the extra balls) to take less club off the tee and keep the ball in the fairway. I nearly brained him with my putter. The last thing I need is some old man telling me that it's better to keep the ball in play. Really Sherlock? I must have missed that during my Obvious Golf Lessons class. That guy ruined my last four holes. Wiseman would be talking about this guy for a month.)

And with that, there shall be no more discussion of any golf that may or may not have happened on June 10, 2007.

Memorial Day golf

Technically, Memorial Day Sunday. I played with the other Tyler and my friends Chris and Sarah (Sarah is the only golfer I've seen who runs between shots). We played at Washington National, which is where the UW golf team plays. It's really an amazing course, and I have spent that four hours since getting home trying to figure out why it wasn't packed to the gills. We arrived at 2:30 and were told we could hop on whenever we wanted. There were three or four girls on the range who played for UW (tall, blonde, and with swings to die for... I was smitten), but otherwise the place was empty. Anyways, the course is a gem, and it's where I'll take people when they come and visit me. I returned to form this week... consistently driving it in the fairway, pretty close to the green, and then butchering the hole from there.

The round in numbers:

• Score: 87 (5 4 5 7 4 5 5 4 3 = 42; 7 3 4 6 6 5 3 7 4 = 45; 6 pars, 1 birdie, 3 doubles, 1 triple)
• Fairways: 10/14 (I hit the fairway on the wrong hole once, and drove the green once, and missed the fairway by 3 inches once)
• Greens: 7/18
• Putts: 34 (two three putts, 3 misses inside 5 feet)
• We played the blue tees, which are 6400ish yards, slope 136. I'm afraid we'll play the blacks (6780 yards, slope 139) next time we go back.
  

Highlights:

• Shot of the day: Kind of a half-stinger 5 iron from 175 on #2; it flew low and under the wind with a little draw and landed 8 feet right of the pin.
• Worst non-putt of the day: Lazy sand wedge for my 3rd shot from 95 yards on #4 (a 600+ yard par-5) that came up well short and landed in a cavernous bunker; I proceeded to make 7.
• Most disappointing non-putt shot of the day (#1): 3rd shot on #14, which is a(nother) 600+ yard par-5. I had 167 to the pin and was too lazy to go back and get a 7-iron. I killed an 8-iron (Tyler H described it as "towering"), but it went about 154 yards, which was about how far I can hit a high, soft 8. It also was well short of the green. The 7 would have been perfect.
• Most disappointing non-putt shot of the day (#2): 2nd shot on #17, which is a short par-5. I had 215 to the front with a tailwind; I smoked my hybrid, and while I pushed it, I felt like I made good contact. Apparently not, as it found a big pond which I had no business hitting into. Drop + bad pitch + indifferent putting = 7.

Anyways, my handicap is now at 11.6, which is a personal best. I remain optimistic about my game and my quest to break 80.

Golf blogging

Golf stories stink. I say this despite the fact that I love sitting around and retelling them over and over (and over and over) again. But for people who don't play, or really even people who didn't play in the round under discussion, golf is a painfully dull sport. There's no poetry in the 75 foot lag putt. There's very little romance in the wedge that spins back for a kick-in birdie. There are only so many times one can say "Chicks dig the long ball" after you nail a 300 yard drive.

But I'm going to spit in the face of popular opinion and write about golf. I'll start by detailing my best round ever, which happened yesterday. I shot 82 at West Seattle, which ties my low score in absolute terms, and is my best score relative to par ever (+10). It lowered my handicap to 11.6, which is the best its ever been. You would think that I'd be jazzed, but to be honest, I'm pretty confused about the status of my game.

(West Seattle is a pretty cheap muni, but it has amazing views of the city. The first 16 holes were designed by the guy who designed Pebble Beach, so it has some nice old-school design elements. See pics below.)



Why am I confused? Normally I'm good off the tee and hit decent irons, and I can be a streaky good putter, but I'm terrible at chipping the ball. I hit exactly one fairway yesterday (on #17 after being mocked by my playing partners for threatening to hit 3-wood). Well, that's not entirely true... I probably hit 7 fairways, but 6 of them were on the wrong hole. But I managed to hit back into the greens complex, make a decent chip, make a short putt, and get out with par or bogey. I was never really in trouble. It was a stressful 82.

In the end the score is a partially a function of luck... West Seattle is designed with rows of trees separating fairways, so there isn't much of a penalty for being wild off the tee. But between this round and the WaDuke round I really like the way I'm striking the ball. I finally think I'll be able to hit my New Year's resolution of breaking 80 this year.

The round in stats:
Score: 6, 5, 3, 6, 4, 3, 4, 6, 6 (43, +6); 4, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5 (39, +4)
GIR: 5
Fairways: 1
Putts: 30
Birdies: 1
Pars: 7

The dumb American

The one downside of my Saturday of Fun in Munich was this American kid who, frankly, was just awful. So bad that I started keeping a list of things he said that annoyed me. Amongst them:

1. I was talking with the Scottish family and I brought up my dream of playing golf at St. Andrews. Dorkboy hears me talking about golf and says "Ever played Pebble? That's the only course to play. That and Olympic Club. You know, where the '98 US Open was played?" I said I was familiar with both, and while I would love to play them, St. Andrews is where the game of golf was, you know, was invented. He continued to press the relative greatness of American courses while poo-pooing the history of the sport. Kind of like arguing that Safeco Field is better than Wrigley Field in baseball. I mean, it's newer and fancier, but it lacks, um, history. He then made sure to point out that he was a 4 handicap.
2. He mentioned no fewer than 5 times that he was traveling through Europe using the $5,000 signing bonus he got from PwC to be an accountant. This fact and figure amazed a couple folks on the tour, but it was pretentious and lame.
3. He bragged about helping his dad lie on his taxes for the past couple of years.
4. He mentioned no fewer than 3 times that he stayed at his hostel on Friday night rather than going out because he was out in Prague the night before until 5am. With a girl. He actually said it that way, with a period in between the "I was out until 5 in the morning. With a girl." This managed to impress exactly no one.
5. He got into an argument with a Kiwi about how many people lived in New Zealand. This was their exact argument: Kiwi: "There are less than 5 million people in New Zealand."
   American: "No, there are barely more than 3 million." Kiwi: "Yeah, like I said, less than 5 million people." They went at it for a few more minutes, but I was busy trying to poke my eyes out.
6. A couple of us were talking about Jaegermeister when Dorkboy announced: "Are you talking about Jaeger bombs? That was our drink in college." The emphasis was on "our", as in "We created that drink, how did you know about it?
7. Some of the folks on the tour were from Rio, and after they left I said "Man, I really need to go visit Rio." Dorkboy turned to me and said "What would anyone want to go to Rio?" I thought about finding a cellphone and calling Todd at that exact moment. Who can't think of a good reason to go to Rio? Um, the beach? Carnival? Did I mentioned Carnival? The party that makes Mardi Gras look quaint?

That's all I wrote down, but you can see how proud this guy made me of my country. He wasn't quite as bad as the kids who played drinking games at the beer garden in Salzburg, but he was close. Oh well...