Golf Diary:

The Round: Played Highland Spring Score 78 Greens In Reg: 6 Putts: 28

The Good: My driving and putting saved the day. The highlight of the round was an eagle on the par 5 13th hole. After a beautiful drive that cut the dogleg I hit a low bullet of a 3 wood off a downhill lie to the middle of the green about 40 feet short of the pin. Of course, I made the eagle putt but more on that later. The eagle gave me the shot in the arm, to post a 1 under 36 on the back nine. What is interesting, is up until I started this blog, I had yet to break 80 in about 10 previous rounds. I had strung some 9-hole rounds together, that were under 80, but never on an 18 hole course, until the last 3 rounds.

The Bad: This round did not look like a round that was going to be under 80. I started bogey, bogey double bogey then got it up and down twice to save pars. Did not hit a green until the 6th hole and that was the only one I hit on my way to 7 over 42. The culprit was some horrendous iron play. Double yuk! Once again, really good putting saved the round. The last iron shot of the day a gap wedge up hill from 95 yards away was a quality shot and hopefully I can continue that feel on the next round. Let’s face it 6 greens in regulation is not going to cut in the long run.

Luck Of The Round: Naturally the eagle putt was the fortunate shot of the day. It was about 40 feet in length and was uphill for about 25 feet and then slightly downhill the last 15 feet. These kinds of putts, up and down, are very hard to judge the speed. Since an eagle putt is a rare occurrence, I was not going to be short. I thought it wasn’t that hard as I saw it start up the hill but when I heard it bang into the flag, I knew it would have gone 8-10 feet past if it had not hit the pin. Not any bad luck during the round, as my putting was even bad at the start of the round. The putts were so bad, that lip outs were not a factor. On the last 8 holes, The putter found new life, as I had only 12 putts.

Next Round: Finishing up a 9 hole round at Mt. Lebanon from March 30, tomorrow.