Soaked

Winter League round three today and the weather was absolutely abysmal. I was determined not to let it effect me and all of my recent on course practice seemed to slot into to place. After a bit of a wayward opening shot with the hybrid I stuck to my irons only today with the longest club used being my 4 iron. It certainly worked on the front nine as I raced to 20 points. I rode my luck in places, most notably on the 6th when my thinned bunker shot rocketed into the lip looped up and left a makeable 8 foot putt for par that I subsequently drained.

It was strange how relaxed I felt on course and when I hit a poor shot I seemed much more capable of letting it go. I think my recent playing partners have played a big part in this change in attitude. However, by the 8th hole I was starting to struggle with my hands and gripping the club. I've never liked the cold and have always suffered with numb hands. Today I had winter mittens and a hand warmer in each one and still failed to stay warm. With wet hands and a chilling wind it would have taken a portable dyson airblade to actually keep my grip going.

What followed was a bizarre chain of shots with sweetly struck irons when I had managed to get my hands a bit warmer and slappy duffs when I hadn't. It was a scrappy affair and just 12 points amassed on the back nine left me with a disappointing, yet strangely pleasing score of 32. It was my best ever performance off the white tees and there were a huge number of positives I could take away from today.

Format today was average score between your pair. We finished with 29, which according to the assistant pro was actually around about the top scores. That was of course bar the winning pair who were miles ahead with 36.5.

Funniest incident today came on the 17th. The green was saturated and covered in standing water. The pin was located on the right of the green so obviously I stuck my approach on the left. I prepared to give it a little extra oompf to get it to the hole. Hit the standing water six feet in front of me travelling at quite a pace and err, well it simply stopped dead. I had to laugh and to be honest by that stage I was just looking forward to getting warm and dry. Hopefully, when the weather improves I'll be able to capitalise.

103 (71)
5(3), 7(5), 4(3), 6(4), 6(5), 3(3), 7(5), 4(4), 6(4), 5(4), 6(3), 8(5), 6(4), 6(4), 8(4), 5(4), 6(4), 5(3)