I had a great weekend marred by mental weakness.
On Friday I went out and played Bald Mountain and Woods at Lakeshore. I used basically the entire day to focus on escaping my overthinking and really just execute the shots I know how to execute. It was interesting at Bald Mountain where I had what felt like a spectacular day off the tee (throwing almost exclusively the Athena) and couldn't really approach even with great spots on the fairway consistently. I shot a +8 day with 5 birdies, and a +4 finish was a harbinger of things to come in a way. At Woods I just had fun, smoked, had a few beers, and played generally terrible.
Highlight: punching down well over 100 feet past the short pad on Bald Mountain #9, and getting myself close enough for a simple hyzer putter and drop in 4. Very difficult hole that I'm very happy to say I've got the bird on.
The next day was Bark at the Moon, our community's local party event. I've won it twice and I was really just hoping to keep my head straight and make sure I didn't lose my entry fee.
I started the day off with a snafu... After a pair of pars on birdie holes I stepped up to a 35 foot putt and short armed the jump putt, falling well short of the basket and landing and rolling to about 3 inches beyond an OB line about 12 feet left of the pin. Just an embarrassing 3-shot bogey from bird range. Two holes later another similarly embarrassing putt that I floated over the basket. I would be +1 after 6 with two ugly missed putts from short C2.
And then just fire. Dead on straight in jumpers for the next 15 holes. Overall I wound up making 4 putts from C2 and one from short C3 on the final hole to go into round 2 with the lead. The equivalent to a 1011 rated round the last time the event was sanctioned (both pretty nice weather days).
Highlight: right before I hit the short C3 putt, on the 500 foot slight uphill hole 1 at Vienna, I told my card mates that I had got the bird on that hole during Bark at the Moon 4 times and I really wanted to make it 5. Great way to close out a round.
Round 2 in the dark the jump putting would remain strong, but the C1 putting got real ugly. Including 2 missed C1 20 footers in the last 3 holes, totaling out to 5 missed C1 putts. In the end, on the last hole, figuring I'd already choked away the tournament, I got real lazy on the last putt of the day and tossed it in the direction of the chains right after a card mate's putter settled into the basket, just kinda trying to get the end of the round out of the way and doinked it.
And that resulted in a guy off of second card tying me.
We would go on to run through a 10 hole playoff, each birding holes 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 before he wound up getting me on hole 10.
It was a great playoff, great battle there, but man oh man I'm just gonna be kicking myself all week for the way I let my head get in the way of just playing the course at the end. Rough finish. The missed putt on 16 resulted in a double bogey, and the miss on 18 in a bogey... both of which were my only 2 holes on the day with more than 3 shots taken. Simply put I just let myself down.
Hopefully I play more tournaments next year and something like this isn't my only tournament result on the year again.
Good thing it was practice...
shot my highest rated round post-transition (one stroke of my best EVER) in the dark!
