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Club Championship This Weekend

Today is the finale of the 36 hole event. The course won't be cleaned up. The greens crew works half days on the weekends - because of the amount of play they are able to do little more than mow greens and tees and prepare bunkers on weekends. The club championship with about 80-90 participants was just the morning outing - in the PM there was another tournament, a lauderdale that was playing its make-up rain date after being postponed a coupla weeks back for weather.
 
Slammin'SAM said:
Today is the finale of the 36 hole event. The course won't be cleaned up. The greens crew works half days on the weekends - because of the amount of play they are able to do little more than mow greens and tees and prepare bunkers on weekends. The club championship with about 80-90 participants was just the morning outing - in the PM there was another tournament, a lauderdale that was playing its make-up rain date after being postponed a coupla weeks back for weather.
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Sounds like course conditions could come into play today Sam! Good luck man, I'm rooting for ya.
 
Today was the second and final round of the club championship, and I got out plenty early. The practice tee was drenched - a bog. They overseeded it with rye a week ago and it is coming up well - but I guess someone on the greens crew thought it needed 6 inches of water last night after all that rain Thursday. But, I found a semi-decent spot and heated up. The open division moved back to the blue tees today, which played especially long with the wetness and debris, and the pins were nearly all cornered, tucked, or ridged. Starting the round, to not use names I will say A (51 yr old retired colonel) had the lead at 75 , I was at 76, and C (21 yr old self-described army brat) was at 77. The rest of the championship flight was 79 to 82.

I opened with a 3H off the first tee, splitting the fairway, but I found my ball at the 200 marker - ouch blue tees. I blocked my 3H approach enough to graze the pines on the right and get knocked down 55 yards out, and made bogey. At #2 I hit a perfect drive and an AW to 8 feet, but missed the birdie. Poor drives on the next two tees led to 2 more bogeys, but I hit the 5th and made par. Everyone else was over par as well so I was still within 2 of the lead. Then I just spun left off the island green and pitched to 4 feet from that left pin - but pulled the par putt - +4. I played #7 well and had 8 feet for birdie, but missed again. #8 was playing long, 202 with a cross wind - I joked on the tee about how I only carry a 4 iron for show, but I hit it green center and made easy par. Then I played #9 a perfect 3 shot par 5, and hit my SW to 2 feet - and totally missed that tap-in birdie to turn in 40. As we checked cards we found we were in a 3 way tie, as A shot 41 and C shot 39.

At the 10th I drove in the fairway bunker, and put 8I in the back fringe, but putted long and missed the 8 footer for par I left. I busted a drive on the long #11, and from 165 somehow unloaded on a 7I and flew the green leading to another bogey - +6. Driver - 4I put me just in front of the par 5 12th, and I pitched to under 5 feet - but again failed on the short birdie putt. Now thru 12 I was 2 off the lead. Then I hit it on the par 3 13th but my 50 foot birdie slid 8 feet left - but I canned the par to gain a shot. At the 14th I hit the pine that guards the right side of the green, but an excellent pitch from 50 yards to 7 feet left a brutally tough twisting putt that I lipped - +7. I was staying cool, because the course was so tough and everyone was struggling. At this point I was one back of A and two back of C. 4 holes to go! I stepped up on the 201 yd 15th and fatted a 5 iron horribly, leaving it 52 yards short in the rough - but I pitched to 3 feet and parred while my two opponents both bogeyed - one back! I played the 16th well and hit AW to 10 feet - when I putted it was to tie for the lead, but it broke a tad more than I read - par. Still 1 back of C but now 1 ahead of A, I creamed a drive perfectly up the right fairway at #17, but from 130 slopped my PW just short of the green - bad swing. I pitched to 4 feet, sidehill. Player A putted on my line from 10 feet and sunk his par as it broke right in. For the first time on the round, I felt some churning inside as I prepared to putt. I struck the putt as purely as possible, and watched amazed as it stayed straight and crept past the top lip - it HAD to break, but didn't. Then player C also missed his par putt, so we went to the last tee with C leading A and myself by one. All three of us hit beauties down the gut off the tee, but we all hit approaches on but nowhere near the hole. Player A putted first from 50 feet behind the hole and ran it 8-9 feet past. Then player C putted from 40 feet short and left it 5-6 feet short. Then I putted from 40 feet left, a big right breaker that I felt I had to make. I stroked it well but didn't quite play enough break, and left it 2.5 feet away. I decided to finish and try to put pressure on the other two, and stroked the par into the back of the cup. Player A then missed his par comebacker, and player C stepped up to his 5-6 footer for par to win, and drained it! Great putt under the heat, and a nice win. I finished runner-up on a tough day.

Final score:

A - 75/82 - 157
me - 76/80 - 156
C - 77/78 - 155
 
Good showing Sam...congrats !
 
Great job sam, sorry you didn't win, but back to back years as runner up is pretty darn good if you ask me. I think you go this in the near future.
 
Great round and great write up.

Top flight was very close coming into day two at just 7 strokes separating the field.
 
It's time to let this tournament go for another year, but I like to reflect on what transpired some first. I went into the tournament with lower expectations than some other years, because I hadn't played well of late. My only real goal was to get off to a solid start and then try to build on it.

I managed to start well, not playing pretty golf but scoring well going thru the first 5 holes at -1. A three putt at the 6th started the scoring slide, but I actually began hitting the ball better and played fairly well with a couple of breaks going against me resulting in bogeys. Still, the 76 score and 1 off the lead was good positioning.

You have to understand that scoring is always difficult in the club championship, and not because the players are of lesser quality. GLGC has a pretty strong set of single digit handicappers. There is a local series of 10 amateur tournaments in the Augusta area in which the top finishers garner points for their finishes (called the Regions Cup) and at the end of the season the top 10 in points from Georgia play the top 10 from S. Carolina (Augusta being on the border) in Ryder Cup style matches - two of our members made the GA team this year, one of whom has been Player of the Year on the senior side a few times. I made the GA team 3 times in the past, but don't play in the series any more except the one held at GLGC. That's just to say the field at our club is not weak. But the course gets a tough set-up for the club championship, and the weather that preceded the event made the course play extremely long. Add to that the tees being hairy from the new overseed, and that especially Sunday nearly every pin was 9 feet from a corner or hanging on a ledge, and it was simply tough to score well.

Sunday I hit only 9 greens, but actually my iron game wasn't bad at all - my driving that has been such a strength for me all year was inconsistent. I had two 3-putts, both the first day, but just had almost no one-putts, 7 in 36 holes. My only birdie was a two-putt., tho in two rounds I putted for birdie from within 10 feet 9 times. I kept in mind no matter what, that the tournament was like a marathon, not a sprint, and that while I was making mistakes and even having really difficult situations even after good shots, that everyone was going to have these same struggles. What hurt me the most in the end was that I missed 6 putts of less than 5 feet, 4 of those for par. The longest putt I made in two days was 8 feet, to save par.

In retrospect I kept it in the road all weekend - no penalties, no hole worse than bogey. If I had just taken better advantage of opportunity I could easily have won.
 
Just got a chance to read about your tournament. What a close one! Great showing Sam! Thanks for sharing.
 
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