July 27th 2019

Today I played the most enjoyable round of golf I’ve had in a while. And, naturally, part of the reason it was so enjoyable was because I played well. I made a stupid decision to try and chip over some trees on the fourth, and ended up with a seven, but apart from that my game was relatively solid, and I played exactly to my handicap of 14.

I shot 86, and it’s been a long time since I shot anything that good. At some point during the front nine I decided that I am no longer the type of golfer who uses a driver off the tee, and so I started hitting a five iron instead and, to be honest, I probably scored better with the five iron than I did when I was using the driver.

On two back to back par 5s I used the five iron tee-to-green and walked away with a par both times. The way I see it, there’s less margin for error with an iron, and if you do hit a bad iron shot the ball is still in play. Hit a bad drive and you’re probably in a forest somewhere.

I just have more faith in my iron play at the moment. Likewise, I’m tending to prefer putting from the fringe over chipping, because I feel like there’s more that can go wrong with a chip. I know where I stand with my putting, and I can be fairly confident over it. I don’t have that feeling about chipping, however.

The +5 back nine was probably the most solid back nine I’ve had in a long time. Usually I get tired and tail off when I realise I can’t win anymore, but on this occasion I was still in the match until the seventeenth. And, if I’d made par on the sixteenth, I’d’ve been in the match right until the final hole.

So I came second, but I felt good about it. Because I played the percentages and didn’t do anything too stupid.

Until tomorrow, I’m hoping for the same when I play again tomorrow.

Jacn