Other than Willowdale, I played Chemawa Golf Course in North Attleboro the most last season. It is conveniently located about halfway between Norwood and Providence, so it's a good place to play. Also, they keep the course in amazing shape. Normally you only get what you pay for, but for the price here the course is better than you expect. Not overly long with moderately wide fairways, it's a good course for people who aren't big hitters or lack accuracy. In other words, it's right up my alley.
If you show up on any golf course in America on a Saturday with only two people, you should expect to be paired up with a couple strangers. This Saturday was no exception as Josh and I were paired with a couple of law students for the first 9 holes. Normally I hate being paired with strangers, cause you never know who you're about to be playing with. As I've said in this space before, you should stick to playing with people on equal footing. Turns out one of them hadn't played in a couple of years, while the other was new to the game. After their first shots went well right and barely past the red tees I was feeling much better about the rest of the round. It's a weird feeling to know that you're not very good at something, yet somehow still one of the best in your group.
In an attempt to keep this post at less than 10,000 words, I will not tell you about all 18 holes. Instead, I'll just hit the interesting ones.
#2 Again, I'm not taking my driver out of the bag. It will be replaced just as soon as possible. Instead I went with 3 wood and got solid contact down the fairway. I ended up about a hundred yards short of the hole, but my approach shot faded at the end and left me off to the right of the green. I had visions of a par in my head, but took my eyes off the ball and topped my chip attempt. My second try got me on the green with a 10 footer for a bogey. Keeping in mind my time at Willowdale earlier this week I took the time to mark and realign my ball. Getting good contact I one-putted for the second hole in a row to save a 5.
#3 I teed the ball up too high and thus was greeted with a towering drive then went farther up than forward. I still had the best drive of the group as the rest of my foursome all landed multiple drives into the out-of-bounds woods on the right. My second shot travelled up the right side of the fairway, but stayed in bounds as I played follow the bouncing ball. It hit cart path for a couple bounces before going up onto a rock formation, against the fence, back on the formation for a couple more hops and then settled into a crack. I took some relief to the grass, but it was short lived as my third again faded right and took a couple more hops on the cart path. I needed two chips just to get over the path and back onto the green. From there I had a 30-footer and I read the break correctly but I needed a little less speed as my ball died just past the cup. I tapped in for an adventurous 7.
#5 This time the cart path was my friend. My drive went left for a change and hit the path, where it just kept going. It travelled down the cart path until the path ended, and even then I got another 10 feet of roll. The path-aided ball left me with less than 100 yards to the hole. I pulled out my pitching wedge, but again topped my chip and required another just to get to the front of the green. Rather than risking a chip which could make my ball fly over the green I tried to putt through the first cut, but didn't have enough power to make it. I made the remaining 6-footer for a 5 that was probably better than I deserved.
#9 One of my favorite holes on the course, it's essentially an island green guarded by a large pool of water, though you have a little course to work with on the left hand side. My first shot went right and came up before the water, just beyond the drop area. I took out my pitching wedge and hit what was probably the best shot of my life. I've hit balls that ended up closer to the hole, but none that were this aesthetically pleasing. It was the perfect-looking chip, landed exactly where I wanted it to and rolled to within 8 feet; exactly how I expected it to. It was almost as if I knew what I was doing. Of course, I pulled the next putt and knew it the second I hit it, but still I was happy with a 4.
#10 After our foursome turned into a twosome, I had to deal with a lot of self-made hazards on this hole. My first drive hooked into the opposite fairway. I managed to drive through a tree, avoiding no less than 5 limbs, to get back to the center of #10. My third shot was short and to the right and it ended up on top of a foot-high retaining stone wall that ran alongside of the cart path. Not really sure how to choke up or get good footing on the wall I instead half swung and watched my ball weakly come off the wall and start down the path before taking a weird hop and going off the path, into the wall, off the path again, back up into the wall before hitting a strange angle and taking a 90 degree turn to the left and onto the green to within 20 feet of the cup. Let's see Tiger Woods do that one.
#13 Facing another hole guarded by two pools of water, I didn't want to lose my heavily-scuffed ball that had worked so well for me the first 12 holes of the day. So, I switched to another from my bag. It turned out to be a good decision as I lost my first ball of the day when my drive hooked into the water on the right. Retrieving my original ball from my pocket I again hit a nice chip over the water from the drop area that made it look like I knew what I was doing. I had to two-putt from 20 feet as I got the speed of the greens wrong, but I was still pretty pleased to have made it over the water only losing one Top Flite.
#15 This par 4 starts with a large valley about 20 yards past the hole and it continues uphill from there. For the second time in the round I teed the ball up too high and hit a towering shot that went no where. My second drive with a fairway wood went down into the valley, but with such force that it managed to roll all the way up to the top of the hill. My third shot with a 4-iron got me to the front of the green on the fringe. Facing a steep drop if I went over the green I decided to putt from 45 feet and came up only about 10 feet short. I lipped out the second putt attempt for a 6 that felt like more of a victory than it probably should have.
#17 My first drive down the right side set me up perfectly for a second shot. I had a solid 120 yards to the hole and I was at a great angle. Unfortunately my second attempt hooked and landed me in a bunker on the right side of the green. That was where the fun began. My first hack in the sand got my ball out... only to watch it hit some hill and roll... slowly... back... into... the... bunker. That's a helpless feeling. And, as an added bonus it barely fell into the bunker and stopped, so I had the lip of the green to deal with. My second bunker shot hit that lip and my ball went farther back into the bunker than I started with. I hit my third with everything I had and watched my ball fly out and land at the back of the green, 25 feet over the hole. I was thinking about how much I hate golf when my 25-foot putt, downhill and with 4 feet of break to it, landed perfectly into the cup for a 6. Those are the moments you know the game has it's hooks into you.
Final Score: 113
Self Analysis: I feel like I've finally figured out my putting stroke. Taking the extra time to mark the ball seems like it helps, even if it's purely psychological. The thing I need to work on now is not having those little 'hiccup' strokes, where I hit a good shot, followed by a crappy one and then hit the shot that should have been my second. I feel like there is one of those a hole and that's 18 strokes a round right there. The other big issue is that I need to just avoid sand traps all together, as I really appear to have trouble in those. But, clearly I'm getting better. My New Year's resolutions were to break 50 at Willowdale and 115 at Chemawa (I thought it was 120, but looking back I wrote 115... guess I was feeling ballsy), and I nearly pulled both of those off this week.
