Portrait of an ugly round
I played from the white tees today at Leo J. Martin. In theory, that should have given me a shot at a better score. In reality, it made no difference. Because I can hit a 20-yard shot just as poorly as a 220-yard shot. Let’s look at the numbers:
Tee shots: 6 decent ones out of 18 tries. Misses were all of the place – a worm burner, a high slice, a pull, a pop-up. Six missed the fairway right, six missed left, and three ended short of target (be it fairway or green).
First approach: 5 greens hit out of 14 attempts. Misses were everywhere – short, long, right, and left.
Shots inside 100 yards: 72 total for an average of 4 per hole. My goal is 3 per hole.
Makeable putts: Made 18 of 26 where I had a realistic shot. I only had 2 or 3 misses on really short ones.
Three-putts: 5 total (including one 4-putt).
Out of play: 4 – 3 in water hazards and 1 into an unplayable lie.
Recoveries: 3 balls put back on the fairway or green out of 15 chances. (This stat is harder for me to track. I’m not sure this one is accurate, and I may need to redefine the stat. I shouldn’t count every shot from the rough as a recovery chance, should I?)
Flubs: 18. Yes, I had 18 shots I’d consider God-awful. Most of them were drives or little chip/pitch shots.
Total score: 114. And it’s not like I needed time to warm up – I shot 54 out and 60 in.
Unfortunately for me, the parts of the game that I screwed up today are not easily worked out on the average driving range. Hitting from a plastic mat to a wide open field is not going to tell me anything. I need to learn how to eliminate mis-hits, including shots from thick rough and bunkers. I need to learn how to put every chip and pitch on the green, whether I’m starting two feet above or four feet below the putting surface. And for heaven’s sake, I need to learn how to hit a decent tee shot on the par-3s. I only hit one green today, and one tee shot was so bad I ended up with a 7.
So it looks like I need to spend some time on the chipping and pitching greens at the Natick Golf Learning Center and at the par-3 Stony Brook golf course. That and $50,000 worth of lessons ought to do it. 8^)
