• Welcome To ShotTalk.com!

    We are one of the oldest and largest Golf forums on the internet with golfers from around the world sharing tips, photos and planning golf outings.

    Registering is free and easy! Hope to see you on the forums soon!

It's Club Championship weekend!!

Bravo

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2004
5,822
15
Well our President's Cup tourney is tomorrow and Sunday. Yours truly is entered.

We used to hold this event in August and it was so damn hot I never played in it. Additionally, the greens in August are softer and slower because the super has to keep so much water/mist on them to keep them alive in the heat.

One month later makes a huge difference in everything. The weather is just superb...the low tonight is 49F/9C and I tee off tomorrow morning at 8:20...I'll have a light sweater on for the first few holes...tomorrow's high is 75F/24C. Same for Sunday.

The greens were aerated a month ago and have been rolled and cut down. Our average Stimp speed in the summer is about 8 because they have to keep them pretty high and damp. In the fall, they speed up to about 11 and are nice and firm.

Fairways are lush and green. Ball will sit up like its sitting on a horsehair brush. Rough about two inches. Balls easily lost.

My index is 6.7...course slope is 135 - giving me a handicap of 8. Unfortunately this puts me in the First Flight. Only the Championship Flight is lower.

I'll have to put together two awesome rounds to have a chance at any money...but am playing for the fun of it.

As Harry Vardon said, "Never Despair"....
 
OP
Bravo

Bravo

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2004
5,822
15
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #3
Good luck, and take a gun to shoot the sandbaggers! :D

I think I will put my shotgun in my umbrella slot on the side of my bag....

Thanks for the good luck wish. I think I am playing just for the fun of it all...hey I will get some free beer for my entry fee...and maybe a sleeve of hard Rock Flites.
 

IrishGolfer

Fac ut gaudeam
Supporting Member
Sep 1, 2004
6,542
4,976
Play well Bravo. I feel the putter will warm up for you. That's where it will count.
 

DaveE

The golfer fka ST Champ
Aug 31, 2004
3,986
3
Good luck Bravo. With weather and course conditions like that you can't help but have a good time.
 

gwlee7

Ho's from Rocky Mount, NC
Supporting Member
Jun 15, 2005
1,402
1
Good Luck to you and you guys wish me well too please. I won my quarter final match in our Club Match play and have to take on the defending Match & Stroke Play Champ in the semi-finals tomorrow. My very "best" golf is his "average" golf so I'll need my A+ game to take him out.
 

sidvicious

Well-Known Member
Jul 8, 2005
158
0
i upgraded from nike slingshots to game improvement clubs. i chose to play them for the first time in our club championhsip.

you can imagine how badly i did. however, i like pain so this was my style.

and it WAS painful.

good luck.
 

JEFF4i

She lives!
Supporting Member
Jul 3, 2006
13,545
95
Hopefully you brought it Bravo! We need some more Shottalk winners!
 
OP
Bravo

Bravo

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2004
5,822
15
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #10
I had a great weekend…here’s a little about the tourney etc.

This is medal play. The Championship Flight is players with handicaps of 4 or below. First flight is 5-7 handicaps….Second Flight is 8-10 and on up to a total of 6 Flights. With my course handicap of 8 – I was in the 2nd Flight.

The Championship Flight is 54 holes played on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The rest of us hackers play 36 holes…one round Saturday morning and the second on Sunday morning.

Fantastic weather. This is the time of year where I really want to play as the heat is gone and the courses are in super shape.

Saturday’s Round: I get on the practice green and expected it to be fast but I couldn’t believe it when I started putting. I just couldn’t keep it around the hole. I was knocking them past. The super aerated a month ago and then, this week – rolled them hard and cut them way way down. These are bent grass greens and in our summer heat they have to leave them a little high with a lot of water on them for them to survive….so they are medium speed between June and mid-September. My best estimate is they went from about a stimp of 8 to about 11.5 in one week.

So guys, on Saturday, I shot an 86 with 41 putts. Yes you read that right. 41 putts. One four putt and 5 three putts. It was grisly.

Our tourney scoreboard is located right next to the pro shop and they have a keg out there. As I walk up, I figure I have shot myself out of this thing on the first round with my net 78. Nope…

There are tons of high scores in my flight. The greens and pin placements have befuddled everyone. The lowest score in my flight is an 82. We drink beer and tell stories of three putting…

So I have a chance on Sunday.

Sunday morning I go to the practice tee. I feel great. I start hitting balls and start Shanking them one after another. Shank….shank…..shank. I start to sweat despite the fact it is about 64 degrees. “Steady yourself now….gather yourself”. This has happened to me before on the practice tee and never occurred on the course. I remind myself of this and hit a few drives with my r7. Sweet.

We tee off and I am hitting it decently. No signs of the shanks and I put it out of my mind….I shoot 4 over on the front. Am in a good group, and we have two players at four over on the front and two at three over. One of them is a young Thai doctor who looks a lot like you-know-who. Good guy and fun to play with.

Tee off on the back…playing solidly and then out of the blue I have have two straight doubles. I am thinking I am out of it and then I birdie the hardest hole on the backside…par the next three and come home really strong. At least I gave it a go. I shot an 81 with 32 putts. I adjusted fine to the greens the second round, but I knew I hadn’t won because a player in my group had a nice 78…

Now onto the scoreboard to watch the scores come in. They have a prime rib buffet on one side of the scoreboard and a keg of beer and open bar on the other side. Lower scores are coming in and I finish one lousy stroke out of the money…took full advantage of the open bar and came home at about 3:00 really sloshed. Got brownie points from the wife-unit when I brought her a big slab of prime rib in a takeout box.

Oh well…a really fun time…and a good deal at $100 per player.

There’s always next year.
 

Rockford35

Shark skin shoes
Staff member
Admin
Aug 30, 2004
21,798
1,080
Canada
Country
Canada Canada
Good showing.

I'm with you on those fast greens, they were set up the same way when I was in Phoenix - cut tight and hard. Coming from nice lush, medium paced dance floors, it was a tough adjustment.

41 putts...well, having 31 the next day sure helps swallow that.:) Some days, it's like you don't even know what the putter is for....


R35
 

Dave Ireland

I'm sizzlin tonite
Aug 31, 2004
1,388
0
I love it ... great report Bravo. I had a somewhat similar day as you with 4 four putts in the Scratch Cup to lose out by 3 shots ... you kinda beat yerself with the "if only" syndrome. Wow .. you guys really go all out on Champs day doncha? .. free beer, leaderboards that must be a great buzz.

Strange that you only allow the top flight player to compete for club championship, as it turned out our champs were won by a guy like yerself playing off 8... we do have class or flight prizes but everyone gets a fair go at the major .. congrats again
 
OP
Bravo

Bravo

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2004
5,822
15
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #13
I
Strange that you only allow the top flight player to compete for club championship, as it turned out our champs were won by a guy like yerself playing off 8... we do have class or flight prizes but everyone gets a fair go at the major .. congrats again

Dave:

I don't know why they do it that way...but at our place the guys in the Championship Flight are really so much better than guys like me its not even funny. There is a huge difference between them and guys like myself.

From the tips, our course measures 6850 and from the regular men's tees its only about 6300, so there is a 500 yard difference and they are playing some pretty tough holes from back there. (The course was playing so long that it was probably a little short of 7000 as it was set up with tees and pins really back). The best guys are shooting below par even with the tucked pins and glass-like greens. While I have shot in the low 70's a few times, I couldn't possibly imagine putting together three low scores back to back from the tips. I knew almost everyone in my flight and I can say none of them have the skills to do it either.

BTW - as I left yesterday, the final round of the Championship flight was being played. A 15 year old boy was leading at -4 after the first two rounds. He is a real local phenom and both his parents played college golf and his grandfather was a successful businessman and the coach of the UAB college team. He is the one who coached Graeme McDowell when he went to college here.

The boy's name is Smylie Kaufman and could make a splash on the US amateur radar screen in the next few years.
 

JEFF4i

She lives!
Supporting Member
Jul 3, 2006
13,545
95
Well it was a great report Bravo, shame the flatstick didn't go any better, but there's always next year. Grind it out!
 
OP
Bravo

Bravo

Well-Known Member
Aug 27, 2004
5,822
15
  • Thread Starter
  • Thread starter
  • #15
:D
Good showing.

I'm with you on those fast greens, they were set up the same way when I was in Phoenix - cut tight and hard. Coming from nice lush, medium paced dance floors, it was a tough adjustment.

41 putts...well, having 31 the next day sure helps swallow that.:) Some days, it's like you don't even know what the putter is for....R35

I really hope that some year we can get a group of guys to come down here in October and play like we tried to do last year. It is so much fun with greens like this. You are not going to find bentgrass greens in Myrtle Beach, they are all bermuda and just don't have the quality or tough breaks like bentgrass does. It really makes it fun and forces the player to think about where they are going to leave their ball on the green.

Hopefully some day....
 

🔥 Latest posts

Top