The Chip-Ins

I’ll start by telling you that I chipped in twice. That’s usually good when you’re trying to shoot even par.

As I suspected, Putterham is not in good shape. Many of the fairways are beat up, with lots of bare spots and cracked areas of dry mud. The greens looked like they’d been aerated recently, and they were extremely hard, making it both difficult to stop the ball on your approach, and also increasing the bumpiness of every putt – a 3-footer could be a real tester. Suffice to say, the conditions were not ideal.

And neither was my start. One of the problems with Putterham is that there’s no range to get warmed up – that’s not so unusual, but the first tee shot is a bit of a challenge, and requires an accurate drive that does not sit well with your first swing of the day. I duck-hooked one into the woods, which set me up for an ugly double-bogey 7 on a hole that anything worse that par should be a bad score. Yuck.

Already +2, I made a routine par on the uphill par-4 second, nearly chipping in for birdie. On the par-3 3rd I hit a solid 7-iron that tracked right toward the pin, leaving only 12 feet; I left it short, though, and tapped in for another par. I had another run at birdie on 4, but yet again came up short and had to settle for par. That brought me to +2 after 4 holes – and as I said in the last post, anything worse than +1 at that point is not good, since the next 5 holes are considerably tougher.

The wind was pretty strong in our face, and the tees were well back on the already long par-3 5th, making the hole play to at least 220 yards. I hit an okay hybrid-2 that found the bunker on the front right side of the green. The lie was terrible – right up on the lip, so I had to stand with my right leg down in the trap and my left leg up out of the trap just to have any balance. I actually made a decent shot but flew it too far and ended up off the green on the back side. After a poor chip and 2 putts, I had another double bogey to get to +4.

On the par-5 6th I absolutely smoked a drive 325 yards down the left side, leaving about 200 yards to the green and easily getting my past the corner to have a clean shot at the pin. This was the opportunity to get a shot back. The wind was with my and there's much more trouble long, so I hit a 5-iron... and blocked it out way right, flying over the 8th green and settling next to a tree with essentially no shot even back to the same hole, let alone the green. I tried to punch a 7-iron and caught an overhanging branch, then tried to hit a 60-degree wedge up over the next tree... but didn't make it, and trickled through the branches to end up on the hillside by the green. I had almost no green to work with -- 8 feet, max -- so I tried another 60-degree flop. 2 bounces... and in for a miracle par. (That's one chip in, if you're counting.)

The 7th and 8th were both mundane bogeys, moving my score to +6 -- probably unrecoverable at that point. I had to try to make something happen, so I tried to hit a big draw/hook driver on the severe dog-leg left 9th. I started it too far left, though, and trickled through the trees into some thick rough about 150 yards out -- I was lucky to even be in play, and ended up only a few yards short of the water hazard that runs down the left side. I had to carry over a short tree in front of me, and ended up hitting a big 7-iron that found the center of the green. 2 putts led to par, and I finished the front with a 42 (+6).

Looking back, I hit only 3 greens and zero fairways on the front, and honestly made 2 pretty incredible pars on 6 and 9 -- I really could have scored worse.

The back 9 started with a "routine" par on 10, and I was set up for another on 11 but 3-putt (badly) for bogey. I made par on the par-3 12th, and followed that with a solid 255 yard drive to the center of the fairway on the 400 yard par-4 13th. The green there is two-tiered, and the pin was on the top shelf -- I flew a 7-iron just over the crest and watched it spin to about 10 feet. Sadly, though, I let another birdie opportunity fall by the boards and settled for a tap-in par.

The 14 is a brutal hole if you don't hit a good drive -- I hit my best of the day, a full 320 yarder to the left side of the fairway, leaving the best approach possible to the green. It's an enormous green, and the pin was way down front; I had about 90 yards left. I caught a SW too flush, though, and flew it to the back of the green, leaving probably 70 feet downhill. After leaving that one short, I yanked my 6 foot par putt and made another 3-putt bogey. I HATE 3-PUTTS!

The 15th is the longest hole on the course, and with the wind back in our faces it was impossible to get home in two. I hit a good drive down the right side, but found a thick patch of rough and had to hit a punch 5-iron that hooked a bit on me and found the rought now on the left side, about 110 yards out. My wedge found the center of the green, and I 2-putt for a solid par.

On 16 I left my approach short, and found myself in a similar position to where I was on 6 -- with an uphill chip and not much room to work with. I went with a 60-degree wedge again, and hit what I though was a good shot -- then watched as it stopped dead with no bounce or roll at all, leaving 8 feet for par. I finally made a putt of more than 5 or 6 feet, and took my par to the 17th tee. A six-iron and 2 putts later, and I had another par.

As we stood on the 18th tee, my buddy Kevin said, "It's so wide open, you can't really miss here." I said, "Yeah, just rip away." And I did -- and my ball came crashing through the trees that line the very-avoidable left side. It was like a sledgehammer; you could hear the thuds as it pounded through each tree, and more than one good-sized branch came crashing down. I found the ball in the pine straw with a playable lie, but not much of an angle toward the green -- maybe a 3 foot window between two trees. The smart play would have been to punch back out to the fairway, but where's the fun in that? I hit a hybrid right through that window, and ended up about 40-50 yards short of the green in the left rough. Unfortunately, I flubbed a pitch and ended up about 10 yards short of the green, again without much green to work with. If you've been paying attention, you know what happened next -- 2 bounces and in (with a PW this time), to finish the back side with a 37 (+2; with 2 3-putts).

The final tally: 79 (+8).

Going back through this round, there were definitely a number of shots I left out on the course (the 3-putts, and 3 or 4 makable birdie putts), but I also had 3 rather "unconventional" pars that could have been far worse. I guess it wasn't meant to be today.

You can see the full scorecard here.