When I began golfing in August of 2004, I kept all my score cards so I could enter them into the system once I had a number to track my handicap. By the time I had joined a club and received my shiny new SCGA number in January, I had probably played around 30 rounds. We entered them all in at the same time and my first official handicap was 33.5 in January of 2005. My index for January of 2006 has now been officially posted by the SCGA and is 16.3. So in one year, I have dropped my index by 17.2 strokes. Not bad.

I have now been tracking my scores officially for one year. I count every stroke of every round and have been strict about posting every single one. The one time I took a mulligan during a round when we were wagering and everyone else had taken theirs, the scorecard I entered into the system still reflected what actually happened. I’m the one looking at my stats and they would be meaningless to me if they weren’t accurate. Now that I have a year’s worth of data, let’s take a look at my development as a golfer according to the numbers.

So, I had two months (March and July) in which my index actually increased (by tenths of a stroke), and the rest of the months I showed improvement. I didn’t play as often from January through March because of the rains and course closures and damage. Frequency of play will obviously effect anyone’s progress. Other than that, I can’t account for the changes. I haven’t had any instruction to speak of that I can point to on the chart. I became a non-smoker in April, but would that make any difference? I could point out that I started competing in May, but who’s to say that had any effect? I’ve always been pretty competitive and tend to increase my focus when something is on the line, but that’s not tangible data. I mean, I started blogging in June and having an outlet to share my passion might have had an effect, too, but we can’t really point to that either. Or can we?

I keep expecting my progress to level off like the rest of the golfers I know. What will be my magic number before I have to take drastic measures (anything other than just playing more) to jump start my development? Or should I take a proactive stance and just plot out a chart for my future now to include lessons, a new fitness plan, a commitment to range time and all that good stuff? I know I should… maybe I could even increase my rate of improvement if I did rather than watch it level off and stagnate before I take action. I was thinking about getting lessons from a local pro that has friends and relatives in my club and social circle. But I just found out he won the Big Break reality show so he’ll probably be off on tour or something or at the very least out of my price range. Besides, I think I’d want more of a long term coach than an instructor for a series or two of lessons.

Anyway, I think I need to launch some kind of action plan and the ideas keep brewing in my head. So stay tuned!

Next post.

This past Saturday I played in our club’s “Turkey Shoot.” It’s something they do every year at the local scrappy nine-hole course just for fun. Then we all went over to the Treehouse (we are the Treehouse Golf Club, after all) for the awards banquet where we had lunch and they gave out all the awards for the year and raffled off prizes. My raffle prize was a box of Maxfli M3 balls, but where I really made out was with the awards.

I knew I’d be getting the club champion trophy, of course. I think they did a really great job with these trophies, too. They even made the extra effort to have the golfer be in a woman’s image on mine. Maybe we can get some more women to join this club!

I guess I hadn’t realized there would also be a trophy for B-flight champion. I also didn’t know I had won something for overall low net. Or that I had placed third in president’s cup points (you get points for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes, as well as tournaments entered, closest to the pin, long drive, etc). So I got trophies for all those things as well. I wore a path from my seat to the presenter!

All in all, it was a fun afternoon!

Here’s my new trophy display area.

From left to right: (wall) 2nd runner up, President’s Cup; (standing) Low Net;

(wall) B-flight Champion; (standing) SCGA Champion of Club Champions*;
(wall) Club Champion; (standing) Hole-in-One, Apple Mountain.
I never received anything for my other ace at Tierra Rejada or it would be there, too.

*Side note: Some people have suggested that I get my name engraved on that SCGA plate. I don’t know, though. It seems like if I alter it, it’s not the prize I won. What do you think?

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…Continued from SCGA TOCC: I love competing

The Results

On the last hole of the day (hole #2 for us), I was just off the green in 2 and just wanted to chip it up close to tap in for par. My chip was long and I ended up about 25 feet from the hole with a tricky looking double breaker. My strategy the rest of the day had been to take an extra stroke to get on the green if necessary, then weasel up close (perhaps you call that a lag) and go for the two-putt. (Essentially, I was playing for bogey golf on the more challenging or longer holes.) I looked at this tricky, long putt and decided I really wanted to just make it to finish the day right. If you’d have seen the position of my ball on this green, you’d know there was no justification for the sense of confidence that overcame me. I knew I could make it. I wanted that par. I got it. I didn’t know yet how much I needed it.

We put our clubs away, changed our shoes, turned in our scorecards and headed into the luncheon. Our foursome, “gallery” and one other guy they knew sat at the same table. He commented that he really expected to come here and win. I told him that he wasn’t alone in that feeling since he was playing against a group of people who were all champions of some club. I thought we all came to win. As we ate, we kept looking up at the board and scores were coming in and being officially posted. There were to be prizes for the top five finishers. They had the lowest five net scores in red and the rest in black as people finished their rounds and turned in their cards and the officials filled in the blank boxes on the board. Maybe most golfers out there have experienced this process, but it was my first time.

My score (68) was in red on the board. I was so excited that I was a contender for a prize. There was another 68, two 69s and one 64. There were to be “card-offs” for second and third prize but not for first, so if no other low scores came in, I was assured at least some prize. My excitement grew as my table-mates explained all this to me and started prematurely congratulating me. Then, someone noticed that the 64 was gone! We all searched for it on the board and discovered that in its place was a big “DQ.” I didn’t need anyone to tell me that didn’t mean Dairy Queen. (I found out later that the guy had submitted his net score from which the officials deducted his handicap to get the 64.) Holy crap. There were only two blank spaces left to fill in with scores and I’m tied for first! Both blanks were filled with marks in the 70’s.

My mouth became very dry and I kept gulping swallows of nothing. I went to get another beer. Odd that I wasn’t nervous before the round nor when I thought I was placing in the top five but upon discovering I had won the whole thing (with a co-champion) I was a temporary wreck. Maybe, like my thought about why I wasn’t nervous at the start, it was because I didn’t shoot a record round and was just shocked that it was enough to win and somehow felt undeserving because of that. I regained my nerves before they called me up but I couldn’t stop smiling and occasionally giggling and I tried to resist clapping my hands in giddiness. They took pictures of us with the trophy for the magazine and the room cleared out fast except for the winners’ tables. We hung around for a few minutes and exchanged e-mails for photos and that was it. I drove back to my parents’ house alone, made a few excited phone calls and took a nap. I guess I did my celebrating the night before.

Champion of Champions – Isn’t it pretty?!?

The other prize for first place was this money clip. Not sure what I’m going to do with that. Maybe next year it’ll be a compact or a purse and the men will face this dilemma.

Looking Back

Upon reflection, it wasn’t just that awesome putt on my 18^th hole that did the trick. Number 16 is a semi-blind, long par 3 with OB left, right and front. The hounds were upon us, and even split up to the tee and the green to try to better manage this potential delay maker. The first guy teed off and went OB. He hit another and we could see that it was in play. My playing partner went next, and the ball went left out of our view, but hound #2 said it was in play on the cart path to the left. I hit next, and my ball left our view to the right of the green, either towards the bunker or the house (I sure wouldn’t want to be sitting on that back patio) and not even the hounds could see it to tell if it was in play or not. After my fellow female competitor went next and played it safe and short left, I declared a provisional, which I promptly sent out of bounds to the right where we could all clearly see it cross over. I hit a third, which went left but I saw it bounce and knew it would be in play even though hound #2 didn’t. If I couldn’t find my first ball in bounds, I’d be lying 5 where that shot landed. It turned out to be in a position almost anyone would be happy with on this hole: just short of the green on the left fringe for a (theoretically) easy up and down. But I had to look for my first. To my amazement, I found it well within bounds, just behind the bunker in a muddy predicament. Since we had the hounds there, I decided to use them for all they were worth (so far, just to provide intimidation) and called one over for a ruling. I thought I might be in a casual water situation, but he didn’t see any coming out from under my shoes. He did, however, lament my situation aloud as he poked and prodded at the muddy bumps and wondered if it was some kind of animal hole. I was only a couple yards from the front of the green and the pin was towards the front, but I had to cross the corner of a bunker from that terrible lie. I aimed a little left and managed to put it on the fringe with my choppy chip, then chip up and putt in to save bogie. Hallelujah. Those three strokes would have put me T6 instead of winner. Of course there were other strokes that could have made the difference, but none quite so obvious and dramatic.

Back to the daily grind

Now if only I could do more of this…
… like I did on Monday (and Sunday and Tuesday) and less of this…

… like I did on Wednesday. (Why do people live like this?) I was in snowy Chicago from Wednesday through Friday, digging my rental car out from under the previous nights’ dump on Friday morning. Saturday morning, I was back home and on the course wearing shorts for my club’s annual “Turkey Shoot.” More on that later.

Not over yet

It has been a whirlwind getting to this point and the wins have come fast and furious. We are fortunate to not really have an “off season” in Southern California, but I plan to make some adjustments to my game and continue practicing and improving. I’m considering seeking out some instruction, but I haven’t decided if I want to continue on being self-taught or not. Maybe I could improve faster with instruction, but I’m not sure. If so, how much faster and would it be worth it?

Next post.

Last Monday, December 5, I played in the SCGA Tournament of Club Champions (TOCC), Vice President flight. When I won my own club championship to qualify to go, I had mixed feelings. Of course I was thrilled to have won, and I was at once excited and nervous to go as my club’s representative. The fact that I am the only woman on the club also entered into my mind. When I found out there would only be three women in the TOCC of almost 100 contestants, again I was conflicted. I love a challenge, but the pressure was on. Fortunately, I seem to perform better under pressure.

Expectations

At first, I thought I would be happy to just “represent” and come in somewhere in the middle of the pack. Then I thought it would be okay as long as I didn’t embarrass myself and my club. That meant my expectations had dropped to the point of being satisfied with not coming in last. As the day grew closer, my expectations rose as they always do. By the time the tournament date arrived, I wanted and intended to win it all. (Although I think underneath I was preparing myself emotionally to be disappointed, just in case. Yes, I am neurotic.)

Preparing like the amateur I am

The week before the tournament, I was at the range every day and my performance there actually threatened to undermine my confidence. I took solace in the fact that the daily swing would at least help keep me in the groove. Plus, I don’t think the results were as bad as they seemed. It’s so hard to tell at the range. Like when I’m on the course and I see my shot go left of my target, it’s usually not as left as I think. But on the range, sometimes you don’t get the opportunity to really know where it wound up in relation to anything.

The Southern California Golf Association (SCGA) is our regional official golf entity like the USGA is national. They organized the tournament so that it was split up into three flights: Championship (2.5 index or less to compete in a gross event), President (2.6 — 8.9 index to compete in a net event) and Vice President (9.0 — 24.4 index to compete in a net event). Each flight played at a different private country club and had its own set of winners and awards. I played in the Vice President flight, of course, which was held at the El Camino Country Club. They allowed players onto the course to play practice rounds for a nominal fee for 10 days before the event. In my efforts to prepare, I took advantage of that opportunity.

Now, this club is about three hours drive from where I live, but only a half hour past my parents’ house. So, while we were down there for Thanksgiving, Greg and I went and played a practice round the day after Thanksgiving. The player information sheet I read said all play would be from the white tees, so of course I played from the whites in my practice round. We started kind of late and only made it through 15 holes before it got dark. I did lousy, but not as lousy as it felt. (I find that every time I play, I expect to do as well or better than the last and if I don’t I’m disappointed. I have to rein in those thoughts to keep the self-flagellation to a minimum.)

Fortunately, I had another reservation to play a practice round the day before the tournament. By that time, I had been told the women would be playing from the green (forward) tees and they just didn’t have it on the player info sheet because they weren’t expecting women in the tournament. So this time, I played the green tees in my practice round. And, for only the second time in my golf “career,” I broke 90. I shot a solid 89 on a course with a rating of 74.7, slope 132. Sweet. I thought if I could manage a repeat performance, or anywhere close, I’d have a good chance of finishing strong in the tournament. I took notes of trouble spots, prime targets, green slopes and tricky pin placements (they had marked the greens with a red spot where the pins would be the following day) but the real benefit of the practice round for me is not walking into a totally foreign environment. Familiarity is key to my comfort level. Greg played that round with me and celebrated afterward but he returned to work on Monday and did not join me at the tournament to be my “caddie.”

The Situation

Before I won my own club championship, my index was 24.6 (to play in the TOCC, the maximum allowed index is 24.4). At the time of my club championship, I had it down to 22.7, so I was in there. That was in October. My November index was down to an even 19, and my December index is now 18.8. So I didn’t know which index they were going to use to calculate my course handicap at the TOCC. It turned out that their policy was to use the lowest out of the preceding few months, which was 19.

In my post about my club championship round, where I knew all the players, I mentioned that my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking. For some reason, that wasn’t the case at this tournament. I was actually more relaxed at the competition round than the practice round. I felt good. Confident. Eager. Surrounded by unfamiliar competitors, I was strangely at ease. Maybe it was because I figured that in this crowd, someone would have to shoot a record round in order to win and all I could do was my best. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that, unlike my club’s format of match play, this was stroke play and I would have no way of measuring my standing except against my own foursome. Speaking of that foursome, they were a nice group. One of the other women in the tournament was in it, who had a slightly higher index (maybe low 20’s) and I think the two men both had slightly lower indexes than mine. She had her husband there who was helping her out with some caddie-type advice, which was allowed, and he was the gallery for the rest of us. All in all, I think it was a pretty well arranged group. Kudos to the SCGA for that. My cart partner had only one arm and he had one of the smoothest swings I’ve ever seen. He mentioned that he had some trouble keeping a grip on the club in the rough, especially irons, so he had to use woods in those situations. There were some less than great holes, but we all played pretty well overall and really had a fun time.

The Round

It was a shotgun start and our foursome began on the 3^rd hole. There is a giant eucalyptus tree protecting the fairway, especially from the angle of the green tees. I hit the snot out of the ball right up the right middle, directly into the branches, which brought my ball straight down. That cost me a lot of yardage, but it stayed in the fairway and it was a great feeling swing and hit to start the round. Steady as she goes, I wasn’t playing as well as the day before but I was playing steady and avoiding disasters. My driver was working – I had a couple of pop-ups that lost distance, but overall I was hitting pretty straight. All my clubs were working pretty well, in fact. On one hole, I got a chance to execute my 4-iron punch shot I had spent a lot of time on at the range in the previous days. While I’d rather not be in that situation in the first place, the recovery was long, low and pretty. On another hole, I got to use my left handed 6-iron to avoid a falling-over-backward-in-the-bunker stance to chip onto the green. As for putting, I made a couple three-putts but a couple really nice ones as well.

The Hounds

Maybe someday I’ll refer to them and appreciate them as “rules officials” but right now, they’re merely “hounds.” After the ninth hole (our 6^th), we were greeted by a hound who informed us that we were a whole hole behind a group that was also a hole behind and that we were now being timed. The first to hit every shot had to hit within 50 seconds, followed by everyone else who had to hit within 40. Now, the group behind us wasn’t breathing down our necks. They were actually a shot or so behind us as well. They must have been warning everyone. However, I don’t think they hounded everyone the way they did us. I don’t think there were that many officials to go around. I don’t know if it’s because there were two women in our group or one guy with only one arm and they assumed we were the trouble because of that or maybe they just found us more interesting to watch because of that. It sure didn’t seem like we were playing slow and we certainly weren’t holding anyone up. Anyway, it obviously added unwelcome pressure and intimidation. They didn’t watch us from a distance, either. They were right up close and personal, almost literally breathing down our necks. They should have given us a couple more strokes for handicapping us that way.

To be continued… (it’s so long already!)

Next post.

What is the old saying? If you love something, set it free, and if it comes back… yadda yadda yadda…

I GOT MY GOOSE BACK!

My “goose” is my 5-wood (I’ll explain some day). I have mentioned that I had lost my wood swing lately and thought it might be due to the rather nifty development of my iron swing and that I knew I’d get it back at some point. I got it back during the practice round before the Tournament of Club Champions! I was so excited to hit those long second shots again. I really look forward to developing that swing and working those golf clubs so I can get the length and consistency I know they (and I) are capable of achieving.

Next post.