If you played a round late this afternoon

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

and you notice a whole bunch of singe marks on edges of the cups, like say holes #3, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17, along with a crater in front of the hole at 18 from a fellow wanting to ruthlessly pound the ball down below green level out of sheer frustration from leaving the last one short, I guess you must have followed me around out there.

Not to mention that I also had 3 chip shots that took serious looks at dropping in the holes at 11, 15, 16, and 17. I actually bounced off the flagstick at #2. But nothing dropped.

My gosh, if I had had any sort of 50-50 luck on these and I'm looking looking at an 87 or maybe an 88. It was that close out there today.

I should be ecstatic. My full swing was much better than last weekend. My short game shots, while I wasn't getting them yet into tap in range, I was getting serious looks at the hole, and giving myself putts in makeable range.

It was so close to being the best round of my life. About 2 feet of difference all told, probably less, and I would have joined Doc in whooping it up at breaking 90 for the first time.

At times, I feel good, knowing that I was giving myself good chances. But I couldn't get any favorable luck it seemed. Oh oh oh, I'm going to be seeing those cups again in my dreams, with smoke coming off the edges.

[Big Brother Dunk]

I feel your pain! We've all been through those kinds of rounds at one time or another.

It'll even out though, and one amazing day everything will drop and you'll have a new personal best. Hang in there.

[ezra76]

Sometimes it takes some luck. Yesterday I hit a 9iron out of a fairway bunker that I caught perfectly. It needed to clear the greenside bunker to a tight pin. If it had been 1inch longer I would have had a real short birdie putt. I hit 3 or 4 tree branches with beautiful strikes on approach shots and had crap lies all day. It started on the 1st hole. A perfect drive ends up in a huge divot filled with leaves. I guess you just have to take the bad breaks as a learning experience. I learned a few things about hitting from bad lies and I'm sure you learned a little about the speed and break of those greens.

[IrishGolfer]

P A T I E N C E !

If you build it they will come...
(Good striking by the sounds of it)

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

Patience, I know. It just felt like my game took a stride forward yesterday, but despite that, it didn't show up in the final tally. Still, I should be pleased that I was putting myself in position to save pars, that for the first time ever I began feeling confident on chips and pitches.

Now I just need that course to cut pins on the practice green so I can put some time in practicing my putting. I need better lagging on mid-range to longer putts, and I need to sink a higher percentage on putts inside of 10 feet.

And before I forget, I smoked an absolutely beautiful drive for me on hole 16. There was a bit of a tailwind, moving from right to left, so I as got the ball, I realized that I wanted to release the clubhead and try to hit it straight or with a bit of a draw, so it could ride that wind.

I hit a frozen rope that went down the center of the fairway, with a perfect trajectory to get some roll. And roll it did. The farthest I've ever driven on that hole before had left me around 120 yards from the center of the green. Yesterday, I didn't get to my ball until I was only 80 yards from the center of the green. It was around a 275 yard drive for me, and that's probably the longest I ever hit one. Perfect sweetspot hit.