Last Saturday was the first time in my life that I crossed the 80 barrier in golf. I’ve had plenty of rounds in the low 80’s, but I can finally say that I’ve played in the 70’s. Here are the details behind the round that I’d imagine most people, aside from golf enthusiasts, care about. My math was wrong on Jeff’s score but an unblemished scorecard is better.

It was a 7:12am round at Bella Vista in Gilbertsville. It’s about a 45 minute drive with no traffic. We played the white tees which I’m relatively indifferent to, but never mind the challenge of longer. I’m sure if we played the blues, I wouldn’t be writing this post.

I started off the round hitting one directly into a tree. From the box it looked bad, and I declined a breakfast ball, for the exact reason as the outcome of the round. Jeff chipped in on 1 for a birdie and I carded a double. After watching Jeff birdie the 3rd hole, and me doubling again, you’d think that Jeff would be the star of the show but as we learned on hole 5, golf is unpredictable. On the 5th hole I hit a good drive and chipped on to about 30 feet and everyone in the group was closer than I was. Amazingly I drained a deep putt and everyone else parred. it. I followed that up with another birdie playing from the other hole’s fairway and even had a shot at a 3rd birdie on the next hole where I 3 putted from 10 feet. You can see Jeff was the halfway leader with a nice 37 on the front.

Bud and I started out with birdies on the back. I made nice up and downs on the next 2 holes before giving back a few with mediocre play and a shot in the water on the island green. I put another birdie on 16 before bringing us to 18 where Jeff and Evan thought it was a great idea to add up the scores. I knew I was having a low round but knowing what you need to break 80 is not always the best mindset. Either way I popped my ball into the left water and it looked like it was going to be just another good round. Instead I chipped one to about 6 ft. and made the putt. We were all happy with the round’s results, although I’m sure Jeff would have liked to keep it together a bit longer towards the end.

A few closing thoughts are that I didn’t necessarily play amazing. Out of the 18 holes, I had good tee shots on 6 of them. This course though allows you to miss fairways and play over trees to get back to your hole. There were two instances of wayward drives where I made birdie and par playing from another fairway. I did capitalize on a few long putts and I didn’t miss any bunnies aside from the poor putting on the aforementioned par 3. Oddly enough, it was my approach shots from 120, which I pointed out in a prior blog, that saved me. From this distance, which is made possible from the white tee boxes, I was sticking these shots on the green and then 1 or 2 putting. It’s amazing what a good short game gets you.