My first tournament, and it wasn’t pretty
Yesterday, I played my first tournament in the Grapevine Golf Association in a individual stroke play event. We played on the Bluebonnet and Pecan courses. My scheduled tee time was 9:51AM, but there was a long frost delay, so it was about 11:30AM before I went off. In order to get everyone off, the groups went off the first tees of both the Bluebonnet and Pecan courses. We went off the Bluebonnet first, though it was second on the scorecard.
There was a pretty big group of golfers at the first tee, various members of the GGA board introducing themselves to newbies like me, as well as a couple of foursomes waiting to tee off. My first tee shot was quite bad, a low snap hook into the trees. Fortunately, I had a clear shot back into the fairway, though I hit the ball a bit long and into the first cut on the other side. I did manage to scratch out a bogey on the hole, though, barely missing my par putt. I was pretty happy with that, since my only goal for the day was to break 100. Surprisingly, my shoulder injury didn’t really affect me at all during play, though my lack of practice while healing the last three weeks certainly did.
I played pretty well, considering, on the Bluebonnet course, even though I hit only two fairways and two GIR, scoring a 47. I had one penalty on the par-5 fifth hole, where I saved double bogey by hitting a 35 foot putt. My best shot of the day was on the par-3 eighth hole, where I hit a 7-iron to 12 feet (just missed the birdie putt). I got up and down twice, though not for par.
On the Pecan course, I started out well by getting up and down for par on the 1st hole and bogeying the next two holes. My game fell apart after that, my best score on any remaining hole being double bogey. I carded a 58 on the Pecan course, my worst nine holes since I first started golfing. I can’t blame by shoulder injury, except to say that it kept me from practicing and my putting and short game really fell apart, along with my approach shots.
I wasn’t trying to sandbag, trust me on that…
All in all, though, it was good to get back on the course.