9.7 - Goal reached!

I finally have a moment to record my thoughts on my latest GHIN handicap revision.  Revisions come every two weeks here in Georgia so I was pleasantly surprised when my June 15th email from the Georgia State Golf Association showed my new index at 9.7!!!!!  My number one golf goal for the past two seasons has been to reach a single digit handicap. I actually achieved a 9.9 for one two week revision period in mid-November last year but it was gone just as quickly as I climbed to a 10.0 the very next revision.

I'm hopeful that I may actually stay in the single digits for a bit this time around. My game feels very good right now with my driver, fairway woods, putting and iron play clicking along very nicely.  I've turned in a few lower scores from my family trip out to Arizona so I think I'll drop a few more decimals with the June 30th revision.  

Speaking of the Arizona trip, I have tons of great photographs from the 5 courses I played out there.  I'll post some of the pics and review the courses here in the next few weeks.

Day 6: Coyote Springs Golf Course

I checked out of the Casablanca Hotel and headed to Coyote Springs Golf Course for a round.  This was a course I was really looking forward to playing.  It's a Jack Nicklaus design that was not on my course rotation for the Mesquite Am but is likely to be on the Men's rotation for next year.  What a fantastic course!  I received a very nice Mesquite Am attendee rate of $65. I decided to give myself a break after playing at distances averaging over 6,800 for the tourney and moved down to a more fun 6,215 yards.

Here are pics of the Par 5 Second.

The number one handicap hole is the Par 4 Fourth.  From the white tees it played a very manageable 359 yards.  I hit a very good drive and had 114 yards left to the pin.  One of the guys in my threesome knocked his approach to 5 feet, and I was just trying for the center of the green.  My approach was dead on line landed about 4 feet short, took one hop and jarred the hole for an Eagle two.  Here is a pic of the green.  Sorry you can't see my ball, but it's in the hole!

This was my fourth all time eagle, all of them coming on par 4's from the fairway.

I really enjoyed my round at Coyote Springs.  Here are a few more pics of this wonderful course:

From the friendly short yardage I shot a very nice 81 to end my trip.  6 courses in 6 days.  What a fun trip!  I'd rate the courses I played in this order:

1.  Wolf Creek
2.  Coyote Springs
3.  Conestoga
4.  Paiute Snow Mountain
5. Casablanca
6. Palms

If I come out next year I doubt I'll even overnight in Vegas and just head straight to Mesquite.  The courses are cheap.  Hope you've enjoyed reading!

Day 5; Tourney Day 3: Conestoga Golf Club

The Men's 49 and under flights course rotation saved the best for last with this Troon Golf managed property.  An absolute beauty, but very tough golf course.  True desert golf with every hole having desert surrounding it or running through it.  The course runs through hills, over them and even a few holes run down arroyos.  Stunning and fun to play. 

I had hoped that our tees for this course would be in the 6,600 yard range but we were playing a hybrid of tees between the tips on a few holes and the next fwd tees (gold) on many others with a final range of 6,847.  I felt a bit stretched again but I loved the golf course, even from those tees.

Troon Golf does everything top notch.  Waiting in our carts were a yardage book, logo ball repair tool, and a logo metal bag tag.  Troon courses are always in top notch shape as well.  Unfortunately for us in the south, Troon doesn’t manage many properties nearby.  The only two I know of are Savannah Harbor Club in Savannah, GA and Sequoya National in Cherokee, NC.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was playing with Scott and Barry again whom I had played with the day before and we were joined by Dan Fisherbaugh from San Francisco, CA. Dan kept us in a light mood all day by telling hilarious jokes on every tee. We were all in that mid range in the standings 16^th to 18^th place and only 4 shots out of the money for Scott and I.  1^st place through 10^th place in each flight would receive a Callaway Golf gift card varying from $75 up to $600.   

I could tell early on in the round that this course was going to be a tough one for our flight from those tees.  I predicted to our foursome that low score for the day would be 85 (I was one off, it ended up being 84).  I was swinging better and set a goal of shooting 90 for myself.  I figured that score would be good enough for me to get into 10^th place and the money. 

I played well and had my goal score in range until our 16^th hole of the day, the par 5 Ninth which was playing into the wind.  I ballooned my tee shot so lost a good bit of yardage when the wind stopped the ball and I barely reached the fairway.  I followed with a decent 3wood shot, but this still left me over 200 yards out and into the wind.  I pulled the 3 wood again and made great contact.  The ball however had a slight fade on it and ended up pin high in a green side bunker on the right side.  I was only about 8 yards wide of hitting the green, which would end up being the difference.  My bunker trouble really took hold here.  My first attempt out of the bunker almost made it but caught the lip and rolled back down.  I quickly stepped out of the way and the ball comes to rest in one of my dug in footprints from my just taken stance of that shot.  I had no chance of getting this ball out of my foot print, so my second shot only moved it a couple of feet.  Exasperated I fail to get out with my third shot.  I finally clear the bunker with my fourth attempt but sail the green.  My final score for the hole was a 10!  Thus ended my chances of finishing top 10.  My final score for the round was 96.

Doc Scott of Ogden had a great day and shot an 88.  This picture was taken of him playing his drive from the arroyo on the par 4 Third hole.  He got a great lie and was able to hit his approach about 10 yards short of the green.  He made a great chip and made the 4 footer he had left for a fantastic par!  Scott would finish 7^th overall.

Here are a few more pics from Conestoga:

The championship dinner  that night was a cool event as the top 10 from each flight were brought up on stage.  I happened to sit down next to one of the flight winners and got to take a close look at his 1^st place trophy.  Each flight winner got one of the 20lb bronze sculptured Joshua Tree trophies.  What a nice touch.

That officially ended my Mesquite Amateur.  I finished in 11th in gross score for my flight and in solo 18th net.  Only the top 4 finishers in each flight advanced to Friday's Championship round.  I had a wonderful time and hope to make the event in 2013 for year 11.  My biggest take away was how nice the people that attend are.  All of my playing partners were great.  Two of them finished in the top 4 and two others finished in the top 10 for the flight.

Day 4; Tourney Day 2: Casablanca Golf Club

Wednesday arrives and I get up early for breakfast and arrive at the course in plenty of time to hit a few balls on the range and get in some putting.  I met the other three players in our foursome – Scott Jolley, a physician from Ogden, UT, Barry Maxwell from Dallas and Brian Sleight from Seattle. 

I’m in a tie for 15^th place so I’m looking to play better.  I’m also pleased that the course yardage is 140 yrds less than the day before.  The Casablanca tees we were playing from were about 6,720. Still long but better than 6,860! The course itself was a step up from the Palms golf course from Tourney Day 1 and the greens were well maintained and smooth.  Casablanca is layed out adjacent to the Virgin River which brings water to the valley that Mesquite sits in so the course was lush, however there were still desert areas aplenty.

My range session had gone great with all my shots being right on target.  This was my ranger rick day though.  Maybe it was nerves or just really desiring to play well, but from the first swing at Casablanca I was in a battle with pulling the ball.  It cost me several strokes and I started with a bogey, dbl bogey, triple bogey on the first three holes.  Not where I wanted to be! 

We had started on the 10^th hole and I pulled it together for a string of good holes following that to finish with an ok first nine.  However,  I ruined my chances of a good round early on the front nine with a quadruple bogey on the easiest hole on the course.  It was a short par 4 with about a 190 yrd shot to clear a water hazard, the fairway was about another 30 yards beyond.  I was tempted to hit 3 wood just to get over, but I decided on driver as I wanted to insure that I reached the short grass of the fairway instead of the rough just beyond the water hazard.  A pull hook into the hazard was the result.  My shot from the drop area was another pull into a greenside bunker.  Then my sand troubles really took hold.  I hit out of the bunker, over the green into another bunker on the opposite side.  From that bunker I went over the green again and back into the original bunker.  Finally on the green from there I two putt for a desert snowman!  Facepalm! 

At rounds end I had finished with a 90. 

I headed back to the Casablanca hotel for a quick shower then drove over to the Eureka Hotel and Casino for a Texas Hold ‘em Tourney for participants of the Mesquite Am.  Buy in was $65 and 80 golfers were participating.  It was a great time.  I started off strong with a straight on my second hand right from the flop.  Another player followed me all in and I had doubled my chips!  I played steady after that and was able to last into the top 20 players.  Not quite good enough for the top 5 which got cash prizes ranging from $1,300 to $350.  A fun event tough that I’ll make sure to participate in if I make it out for 2013.

At that evenings dinner standings were revealed for round 2.  I dropped one place in the overall standings and was now 16^th out of 30 golfers.