I feel complete again

After a long, cold, snowy winter the golf season is finally here and I took full advantage ofit this weekend.

Started off on friday when I took off work early to meet Preston and some friends out at Rattlesnake in milton for my first 18 of the year. Have to say, this is probably the first year that I was in shorts for the first round of the year. side note, wow I'm using "first" a lot so far. Weather was like mid july in the 20's without a cloud in the sky, couldn't ask for better conditions. The course was in awful shape, typical for a clublink course. No need for putting out there cause ther greens were so bumpy and covered in divots still from last year. Not sure why i even go out there. Not a huge fan of the course, and it's only really a slight step above a public course as far as conditioning. But it's still a decent track. Can't complain about the round. I shot an 83, with 4 double boogies. Aside from those 4 holes I played well. Hit a lot of good drives and my iron play was pretty good. Lost most of my strokes around the green, short game was awful.

Saturday morning I got out with Matt and Cal early in the morning back at St. Catharines. I have to say this round was one of my most satisfying rounds I have ever played. I shot a 79. It's not my top score ever or anything, but how i got to 79 was what made it such a good ronud. I started off poorly on the front with 1 birdie on number 6 and shot 41 on the front. I made the turn and went boogie, boogie, boogie, boogie for the first 4 holes. Usually I would have just kept falling and giving up. But this time I took a few deep breaths and got into a grind mode. On 15 I hit a decent drive down the left, 6 iron layup, and a nice wedge to about 3 feet for a birdie. Made a nice par on 16, hit an amazing rescue cluvb 222 yards on 17 to about 8 feet but missed the putt. On 18 I hit my drive onto the side of a bunker so I had a difficult uphill lie hitting to a back left pin location. I struck maybe my best 8 iron ever to about 8 feet this time making the birdie putt to go 2 under for the last 5 holes and shot a 79. I was ecstatic with this cause I batteled back for the first time instead of giving up and blowing my round. Great day for me.

Sunday was another beautiful day on the course. The weather was just perfect all weekend. Played with the normal sunday groupings. Getting sick of playing with these guys cause there old getting old and want to play the blues everytime there is the slightest chance of there not being the most perfect conditions out on the course. It's not 85 degrees, play the blues, it rained 3 days ago, play the blues, the sun is at a point in the sky where is shines on the club house from a 60 degree angle, play the blues. What bothered me the most was just 24 hours before Cal, Matt, Bernie and myself all said we don't care what they play we are playing the blacks. I get there in the morning and the first group on the tee, Bernie inclucded, are getting ready to tee off from the blues. Ok, so i declare I'm out of the skins for the day cause I'm not playing the blues. Of course this becomes a big deal with everyone, but after a little complaining they move back to the blacks. This causes everyone to blame me, i'm sure Andy, Gary, and Joe complained about me the whole round, even though Cal Matt and Bernie wanted the samething I did. Oh well, i'm still not playing the blues this year. It's a waste of a round as far as I'm concerned. Anyways, onto the golf. I played awful on the front, just couldn't put it together. Shot a 46. I did again keep my composure. I shot a 37 on the back to shot 83.

I was hitting the ball nicely all weekend. Starting to really find my tempo which is helping to control my shots better and have confidence to hit the shot I want to hit. I also managed my club selection better. Opting for a 3/4 swing and clubing up one club from where I used to be and finding that control everyone tells me about. I found myself choosing the wrong club a few times and overswinging causing me to push it right, so hopefully I can get over that and blub myself better going forward.

Still a good start to the season. 79 in the handicapp index is a good start to getting down to a 2.