Rookie on the Green

Today was my first day ever to play in a golf league.  I had a great time but played a horrible round.  The ladies I was paired with were all very experienced golfers and were very gracious about my struggling, and gave me lots of good pointers.  For some reason, my drives, usually the strongest part of my game, were way off both in terms of direction and power.  But for a change, I made almost every short putt I attempted — that was a huge improvement.  The key was to focus on just barely tapping the ball as opposed to crushing it like I usually do (this is why my husband calls me Golfzilla when I putt).  Maybe I’m finally getting a feel for toning down the overenthusiastic putts.  I think this league play will improve my game a lot over the summer (and there’s a lot of room for improvement), so I’m glad I went for it.

I made it out to the range again today with high hopes for a nicer day since it was at least sunny.  The wind was still howling, though.  I was dressed like the Unabomber on the driving range — hood up, shades on, keeping out the wind any way possible.  My eyes are still watering.  The ball kept blowing around on the mat — it was hard to keep it still to hit it!  But I did get in some good chipping practice.  The chipping greens at Hiawatha are kind of protected by hills, so the wind wasn’t quite as bad.  I was impressed by the turnout on the course despite the cold and nasty wind.  Minnesotans are known for their hardiness, after all.  I sure hope the wind has died down by tomorrow, or we’re in for a long 18 holes during the first day of league play.

I headed to the golf course this afternoon for some quality time with putting and chipping, but the Minneapolis weather was anything but quality.  The wind was blowing so hard it nearly moved me during my setup — the balls I hit into the wind went nowhere!  And then it started to rain.  I got in one round of practice chip shots using my newly acquired Golftec chipping techniques and one round of putts.  Call me a fair weather golfer, but staying out there in the rain just wouldn’t have been productive.  Oh well, I gave it a try.  Tomorrow is supposed to be back up in the 60s, much better than today’s 46 degrees/ “feels like 38″ with 35 mph gusts.  I’ll head back to the range for practice under more conducive conditions.

I’m a very patient, laid-back person, but the guy we got paired with for 18 holes today got on even my nerves.  To set the stage, my husband and I were walking the course and this guy and his friend had a cart.

Things started off badly when on the first hole, the guy drove his cart right in front of us on the fairway as we were setting up to hit our second shots.  No amount of yelling could dissuade him, so we went for it and had to yell fore because he was sitting in the path of the ball in the cart.  It was pretty hard to understand why someone would do this, and he did it on just about every hole.  He was just oblivious, when common courtesy (and common sense) is not to stand in front of or park your cart in front of someone who’s hitting a shot.

The problem got worse and worse the more beer the guy drank (and he was the only one drinking). He also got slower and slower on his shots to the point that even though he had the cart and we were walking, we always ended up waiting on him — it got to the point he was really holding up the pace of play.

The most unfortunate side effect of all the beer was that the guy felt the need to relieve himself behind every tree (and on a fence, and even on the sidewalk next to a tee box).  It seemed like every time I looked up, he was doing it again.  Ay caramba!  That was downright disgusting.  I did everything in my power not to shake his hand at the end of the round, but somehow I was forced into it!  At least I gave him my glove hand…blechhh!!!  To top it all off, he kept on calling me “hon” and “honey” in a really obnoxious way throughout the round.

One kind of funny thing did happen, though.  I think even the guy’s friend was (FINALLY) starting to notice that the guy was really out of it.  On about my 5th shot on a par 4, I happened to land the ball in the hole from about 50 yards out (yes!).  The guy was convinced it was a hole in one and that if he signed the witness card I could get my name in the paper.  His friend had to yell at him for him to believe that this was not actually a hole in one.

Bottom line:  we would have had a much better outing without all the frustrations this guy brought on — it just wasn’t a pleasant time.  It was hard to focus and was just constantly aggravating.  Maybe we should have just let him and his friend play ahead of us to wash our hands of the bad apple.  The moral of the story:  please, please, please don’t be THAT GUY!

Today we headed out to the Braemar Golf Dome in Edina, MN, to get in some mid-winter practice.  This was the first time I’d hit balls in a dome before.  According to the website, Braemar’s dome is “the largest and longest-hitting in the Twin Cities area with 46 tee areas on two levels.”   The prices aren’t bad — $10.50 for a half hour on a tee with unlimited balls (that’s on weekends) and $7.50 per bucket during the week.  Two people can share a tee, so Matt and I alternated on one tee and it worked well to have short breaks between each hitting session.

It’s pretty close quarters on the tees.  You can’t take your golf bag in, so you have to just carry in the clubs you want to hit.  Definitely a great way to get some practice in while the weather outside is so nasty.  I’m sure we’ll go back quite a few times before spring arrives.  The picture’s a little blurry, but here I am hitting some balls.

I usually like to keep this blog more on the lighthearted side, but thought I would relate a brush with a not-so-lighthearted incident that made the local news this weekend. My friends and I were playing Columbia Golf Course in Northeast Minneapolis on Friday afternoon when we encountered the smoldering wreckage of a truck crash just outside the fence at Hole 5. Fire trucks were on the scene and the police were taping off the section of the course just behind the green. Later we learned that this was the scene of an unfortunate crash that left two dead after a police chase. I haven’t seen any news stories that specifically mention Columbia Golf Course as the site of the accident. Here are links to the local news stories:

Two die in car crash in Minneapolis while trying to flee cops

Identities of men who died after fleeing police released