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It’s always nice to start a tournament round with a couple of birdies, like I did at the Arcola Country Club course in New Jersey for the U.S. Senior Open qualifier. It’s never nice to end with a couple of bogies, like I did at the end of the round on holes 16 and 17, which took me out of a playoff at 72 and left me driving home with nothing to show for my efforts. The course was quite challenging, over 100 years old with fast poa annua greens, juicy rough and tight green surrounds. I was not able to play a practice round as the course was closed to other than member play on the Sunday before the tournament round, and the practice rounds scheduled for during the week when I was working and 3 ½ hours away. This cost me in the end, although better ball striking would have made up for any lack of local course knowledge.
I have been hitting the ball better lately, my driver going further than normal and my irons becoming more solid and accurate, while my putting has improved significantly after I put a TaylorMade Ghost Manta mallet type putter in my bag to replace the Spider I had been using since last year. My continuing issue is with my longer clubs, especially the driver, as I tend to block and cut the ball to the right due to technique issues, namely that I don’t get deep enough with my right leg in the backswing, then cross the line at the top due to the lifting of my trunk, then approach impact with my right leg coming “out of the box” and my hands high, leading to an open clubface at impact. True to form, I cut the ball into the rough on the first hole, but not too bad, and since I hit it 275 yards it left me with only a 9 iron to the green, which I blocked slightly but managed to catch the putting surface from where I 2 putted from 35 feet. I hit the green on the second hole, a 5 iron par 3, and canned a 40 footer for birdie. A good drive and a gap wedge to 15 feet on 3 led to another birdie, and suddenly I was 2 under for the day and feeling pretty good.
I have played enough golf in my many years of competition to realize that there is no point getting excited about getting under par early, but it certainly feels better than getting over par, and after a couple more pars we reached the 7th hole, a 200 yard par 3 playing against the wind over water, the first really demanding shot of the day. I hit a pretty good 4 iron straight at the pin but a bit short, on the green but 35 feet away with a couple of mounds in between my ball and the cup. I ran it up fairly well to about 2 ½ feet, but my 2nd putt moved the opposite way I read it and I lipped out for my first bogey of the day. Holes 8 and 9 were par 5’s, the first of which I could reach in two, but I failed to take advantage, driving the ball into the rough on 8 and then hitting a mediocre pitch from 20 yards short of the green, then on 9 hitting my second into the rough with no chance to stop the ball anywhere near the pin, a case where a practice round would have come in handy, as I would have laid back to 80-90 yards for a full 58 degree that would have had a chance to stop and give me a better birdie opportunity.
After parring 10 and 11 with less than stellar shots (I hit the greens but pulled the drive into the rough on 10 and pulled an 8 iron 30 feet right on the par 3 11th) I hit my worst shot of the day with a pull hook off the tee on the par 5 12th. Luckily the ball bounced over a creek and ended up giving me a shot to recover, which I pulled again into the left side of the fairway, leaving me 175 yards away and needing to hook the ball around some trees. I pulled the shot off fairly well, ending up in the first cut next to the green, and hit a nice pitch to 2 feet to save my par. The 13th was a short (326 yard) par 4 that I had seen on the previous day and decided that I should play conservatively, as there was a lake to hit across that would catch a ball blocked to the right. The green was quite small with a run off area behind it, and in hindsight I would have been better off to challenge the hole with my driver, which would have left me with around 50 yards from the pin. Instead, I hit a 2 hybrid and pulled it a bit into the first cut on the left, which put me 140 out with what looked like a bit of a jumper lie. It was slightly downwind, so I took the 9 iron and hit a great looking shot that hit the back of the green and went well over, leaving me with next to nothing and an unwelcome bogey. In hindsight the shot was really a full pitching wedge, which should have made it over the bunker and given me a shot at birdie or at least an easy par. But two errors on the same hole almost inevitably lead to bogey or worse, and that is what I ended up with.
I failed to mention that before I teed off I looked at the scores and saw that there was a 69 and three 72’s, so I knew that it would take at least even to make a playoff, and anything higher was no good. As it turned out, at the end of the day there were two 69’s and a 70, but the next score was 72, and the 5 guys who shot even went out for a playoff for the last remaining spot. I had guessed that the number was 1 under 71, and I ended up being correct about that, so by bogeying 13 I had gotten to even and now had to finish nicely to have a shot at the Open. I parred 14 routinely, and now had a reachable par 5 and three par 4’s of around 400 yards to finish the round. I hit two good shots on 15 into a greenside bunker and had a straight forward 20 yard blast shot, but the sand was thinner than I expected and my shot flew all the way to the pin and rolled 12 feet by. I hit a good putt that broke more than expected, so my birdie chance went unfulfilled. 16 was the shortest of the remaining par 4’s and looked a bit tight, so I took the 2 hybrid again and hit a poorly struck high pull which ended up in the fairway, but as it turned out left me with a shot obstructed by a large overhanging tree. I wanted to hit a hard 9, but instead had to hit a knockdown draw 7 iron to keep it under and move it around the tree. I struck an awesome looking shot, and everyone in the group figured it was close, but in reality it had gone over the green and down an embankment. When we couldn’t find the ball immediately it was obvious that the lie was not good, and that was exactly the case as it had found a nice hole in the deep grass, leaving me an impossible shot I had to hit well just to get onto the green. The bogey ensued, and now I was faced with having to birdie one of the last two holes to get into what I thought would be the playoff.
I hit a great drive on 17, 280 yards up the middle of the fairway, and now was staring at 140 yards to a middle pin, slightly against the wind. I chose to hit the small 8 rather that the hard 9, and took dead aim at the pin. It was the kind of shot you hit thousands of times at the range, usually unconcerned with the results. A shot like this is why golf without competition is bogus. If the results don’t matter and you can just rake over another ball with no consequences to your poor execution, then what does it matter whether or not your technique works or not? This is the test: this is when it matters. Can you hit a good shot or are you going to fan it into the bunker? Well, I failed this test miserably. I hit a horrible sclaff to the right into the bunker, and to heap more misery on my miserable effort the right side of the green sloped dead downhill to the hole, leaving me no chance to get within 15 feet for a chance at par. And so it was that I made another bogey, and now, at 2 over, out of the competition.
Looking back over the round two things are obvious: it would have been nice to have played a practice round, and I still have a ways to go to get my game back to where it was 4 years ago. The good news is that my back and my body overall feel much better. For the first time in a long time I can’t blame any of my misfortune on pain or stiffness. Other good news is that I am producing a lot of power off the tee, and my putting is pretty solid. I am heading out to California to play a couple of difficult courses in the National Club Pro at the end of the week, and I actually feel excited about my prospects to make the cut there for the first time since 2008. I will be reporting in from the tournament site, so stay tuned.
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