Goofy Golfer

A teetime at 8u45, would it be light enough already to start ?
Would we even see our balls the first couple of holes... a question soon to be replaced by will the fog disappear.

A upon driving to the course the view was around 200meters.. when I arrived at the parking I couldn't even see the 18th clearly.

Albeit being cold it was really busy on the course for a winter day, 2 flight gathering behind us on the first tee and at least 2 flights before us ,

At least 2, as I had seen at least 2 groups departing to the first tee
The flight in front of us started ... and then it became clear .. or rather unclear ... the view was less than 160 meters.. so for the first couple of holes our teeshots would be pretty blind. The problem was bigger however .. we couldn't see if our landing zone was clear or not.. we had to really look hard into the fog to see if there were still people standing on the fairway before we could start ourselves.

You'd expect the fog to clear out after a couple of holes, but that didn't happen. If you had never played Cleydael before you were going to be in trouble, you really had to know where the fairway was and have a good idea of what your ball did. There were 2 options .. either your ball was on the fairway or it was lost ...

Well there was a 3rd one which we did encouter on the 15th
2 perfect (or seemingly perfect) shots... both straight , both long .,
both still high up in the air when we saw last sight of them.. Given the clubs we were using the distances of the balls shouldn't be that far apart ..
Like maybe 2-3 meters apart from eachother, just as on the 8th.

Upon arriving at the landing zone.. we only found 1 ball.. just 3 meter short of the water, and then we realized we were both playing with the same ball so we didn't know which ball it was.

As the 15th is a PAR 5 , we didn't think of taking a shorter club, usually we don't have to worry about the water and today we had about 10-15% less distance due to the fog. However as we were playing from the winter tees the distances on the holes were a bit shorter.

We hadn't seen any of the balls land.. there fog was way to thick for that so we decided to both continue from the same place. We both made PAR.

It's a weird experience, blind shots on pretty much every hole.
Obviously you have holes designed that way on lots of courses but if you can't see your bal land on 16 out of the 18 holes you play .. it's weird..

But fun ... we both played a pretty good round with stableford scores that would be in the mid thirties and low forties if we would have played from the regular tees.. no clue on how many strokes we'd get on the wintertees.

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As mentioned 2 weeks ago.. I had booked me 2 intrresting T-Times for during my Gran Canaria holiday.

The 2 were at Maspalomas and Meloneras Golf in Maspalomas

My first course was the Maspalomas Course, I had a start time at 11.38 I arrived 20 minutes early payed my greenfee and set off to the 1st tee. The starter however redirected me to the 10th where I was grouped with an English and a Swiss guy. The Englishman's wife was caddying for him. The good thing about starting on the 10th tee was that we had really low traffic in front of us as compared to the people on the first 9.

Maspalomas is what some people will call a Tourist course .. the fairways are pretty wide, it's pretty flat , it has little or no "Wow" holes and on only 2 holes water came in play, and apart from 2-3 holes near the dunes even missing the fairway isn't really a punishment. The fact that I putted on the 18th hole with the same ball I started on the 10th and putted on the 9th with the ball I stated on the 1st proves that.

My Second course for the week was Meloneras. Meloneras is a totally different course from Maspalomas, although not even 5 Km apart this course really has a lot of "Wow" moments. I was grouped with a Spanish and a German player .. and they both had played the course before. The first 9 have a great view on the mountains, they are absolutely not flat compared to the Maspalomas course and by the time you reach the tee of the 5th hole the view to the sea is magnificent.

As usual I played from the yellow tees, but the course surely has the opportunity to host international tournaments with often even 2 tees behind me.

I'm still not sure which rule I should have followed on the 2nd hole.
I hit my 3rd shot out of a bunker right off the fairway , on the other side of the hard road for the buggies. My ball bounced back on the road in its gutter and then rolled back downhill for about 30 meters to drop still in an empty concrete water reservoir, or maybe it was just a road as some time later I saw one of the greenkeepers driving his tractor trough that same construction. So was it a free drop or a drop + penalty ? And if it was indeed a water hazard where did I enter it .. the moment my ball dropped in the empty gutter or the moment it dropped in the bigger empty reservoir ? I'd love to see the European Tour play there and see a PRO face the same problem. Obviously I won't see that as they'll play the green in regulation.

The 3rd hole plays about 165 meters over water, but the most dangerous part of that hole is the fact that there are numerous balls from the driving range on the teebox and the road to the green, so watch your back when you stand on the teebox. Both other players didn't reach the green and my Iron 5 hit the fringe. the birdie lipped out however ;(

The real nice holes however are in the backnine. They start with an easy 10th hole , a short one down hill , once again however, just as on Hole 3 the course might want to invest in some fences, my first and bad teeshot hit the parking lot, didn't hit a car however .. I think. Hole 11 is where the real fun starts, its a dogleg to the left, if you are a long hitter you could think you could carry the corner, but you probably won't , no really you won't , take my advise here.. keep too the right .. don't try to cut the corner.

Hole 12 is the signature hole of the course.. it's a par 3 uphill that is being pictured on most of the brochures and sites you see about the course. The view is magnificiet. You hit towards the atlantic if you miss the green on the left that's where your ball ends up.. if you hit it short .. same result. ..I got my 2 points so I was happy.. the 12th was the first hole of 3 that plays next to the Atlantic. The 13th is a long SI 1 par 5 where you absolutely don't want to go left (that is if you want to keep your balls...) and the 14th start starts of over a gaping 130 meter ravine. When heading back to the clubhouse Hole 15 , 16 and 18 also require you to carry small ravines.

The views on the course are great... too bad I didn't have a decent camera with me.. who knows next time.

Both courses I played 19 points in the first 9 holes .. then absolutely failed to confirm that in the second 9. So the final conclusion .. I really should try more to play 18 holes. My scorecards usually show .. I play 9 fairly well.. then break down. So I`m pretty sure what my next year goal will be .

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I've just got confirmation for a couple of interesting Tee Times next week..

Really looking forward to them.

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Summer is gone and I haven't even blogged about our first "18" hole course of the year. Just before the year was half I finally managed to plan me some time to play 18. Broekie suggested to go and play at WitBos as his/our old pro is working there now.

WitBos is actually a 12 hole course, but 6 of the holes are played twice. It is a former military course now open for the public. The opening hole is a strange one. You start off on a small part of grass and and before you even see the real fairway you have to conquer one of the old military buildings. The building , about 15 meters high sits somewhere inbetween the 40 and 120 meter mark. The fairway starts behind it. But don't hit your ball too far as at about 180-200 meters there is a nice creek protecting the green. So yes the green is drivable, but your ball has to start high enough , and if you are short you are punished also.

Although lots of interesting par3 , the course also has some challenging par 5's. The 4/11 the hole has a small fairway with threes on the left and oob on the right. If you dream of hitting the green in 2 ,your teeshot must land exactly in the opening between the woods and even then the green is only half visible. (Obviously the time of the year can change that :)

One strange thing about Witbos is that in some of the ponds surrounding the greens there were signs "No Fishing" , which we found pretty normal .. however what they actually meant was "No fishing for balls" ,

I can imagine that on a busy day Witbos can get crowdy as 6 of the 18 holes are being played twice.

But being slightly more expensive than a 9 hole course and getting to play 18 , Witbos is definitely a good course to spend your afternoon.

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On Monday I played 9 at the Domburgsche Golf Club in Domburg , the Netherlands, a 9 hole Links course at about 1u15 car drive from home. The course requires a 30 HCP if you want to play there in the weekend or during July or August .. but a 36 will do for the other days.

And unlike most other foreign course they actually did ask for a handicap proof.

Although a 9 hole course you have to pay a Day ticket which allows you to play for the day , having only time for 9 makes it kind of expensive but still worth the money. Note, that they only accept Dutch bankcards and no Credit Carts when I played there.. so I was happy to have enough cash on me.

So up to the first tee .. an elevated tee with a great view over the rest of the course. Not having played for over 2 weeks, not having warmed up, the only reasonable thing to do is to hit a practice ball into the fairway to see if you still know how to swing, some people call it a mulligan, I just call it a practice ball.
Standing up there the fairway seemed extremely tiny, was I really aiming for something that looked like it was 10 meters wide (and in reality probably just 15 at some places ) .My Iron 4 teeshot found the middle of the fairway about midway beyond 150 and 100 meters marker, an easy Iron 8 up the hill reached the green. Green in regulation at the first hole of a new course, I think i can count the number of times that happened so far on 1 finger :)
If it wouldn't have been for the extremely fast greens I could have made par .. but my first put was way to far.

I took a glimpse at the second fairway during my climb up to the 2nd tee. From the teebox the fairway let alone the green were nowhere to be seen. The only guide for direction you have is a largish pin on top of the dune that points in the general direction of the fairway. This time a my teeshot was bit to the left on the fairway but again a reachable green, I however missed it by 3 meters, a chip and a 2 put further I had my 2nd 5 on the card.

At hole 3 the danger starts, the danger being the holes being a little bit to close to eachother, yes they have placed priority signs on which hole has priority over which one, but being a first time it's not really easy to figure out which tee belongs to which hole. Hole 3 is a 140 meter par 3 , however depending on the wind direction your clubselection will differ. I took mine a bit short, and missed my bogey put.

Hole 4 is the SI 1 hole of the course , a longer par 5 , some local players were still looking for their balls and waved me trough, my 3rd shot was still on the fairway, but I still has 70 meters to go till the green. Usually 3 good shots with my 4 bring me far enough , the seaside wind decided against that.

There was a queue on the par 3 5th, again a group of locals that suggested I'd tee of with them and then continue ahead. The 3 of them hit their woods to the left and let the wind bring their balls back on the fairway .. having a slight error to the right I opted for the same approach only to hit the straightest shot ever, straight on to the nearby road , even hearing the ball bounce there before it disappeared. The locals told me that I really wasn't the first to do such a thing and that years earlier someone had hit a similar shot into a car driving by. It however was the car of one of the dutch ministers and the sound of the ball hitting the car made them think it was a terrorist attack.
Luckily for me , there was no car in sight . My second ball was better :)

I missed my teeshot on the 6 thole.. to the right just in the rough .. could correct it however .. I however managed to hit my final green approach in the pothole next to the green, took me 2 shots to get out of it.

When teeing up at the 7th you have to make sure you don't hit the people putting on the 6th, no danger on the 8th, but more danger on the 8th green when people are teeing of from the 9th tee. I had seen people tee up on the 8th with heavy woods not reaching the green. So I was a bit in doubt ..I opted for the Iron 6 , almost over hitting the green, but with a chip and a put my par was in.

The flight on the 9th was still looking for their ball and again waved me trough.
The 9th tee again is a blind shot where I missed the fairway .. my 3rd shot ended up in the pothole bunker next to the green. First time I was in a pothole bunker that size.. I could barely see the flag, but I managed to get out in 1 shot.. and even put it close enough to the hole for one bogey put.

Sadly I had no time for 9 more .. , maybe till next time.
But 20 points Stableford over 9 holes with a fresh handicap on a coourse I never played .. I can't complain..

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Awesome .. I just learned about Golfbug.tv

I just launched my browser on my mythtv box and for the past half hour I've been seeing fullscreen GolfTV from my lazy chair.

Hmm.. Maybe I had better gone to the driving range for some practice :)

But definitely good stuff for a friday evening ..
They seem toe have a magazine called the Back 9 which is also really enjoyable to watch.

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No really it happened to me !

Last week I played a Qualifying game at my home course. I didn't feel like playing well but I played good enough to cut 0.5 of my handicap.

So I was expecting to get a lower playing handicap for my next game.

I didn't even have time to check out my new playing handicap before a mail popped up in my inbox that the Stroke Index and the Slope Rating for the course have changed . Up from 117 to 125

So in stead of losing 1 stroke I actually got 4 strokes extra.

I kind of was expecting that when the new green on hole 5 was going to be taking in production we would get a change in Stroke Indexes and extra strokes as it was supposed to change from SI 18 to SI 1 as the sign next to the hole said. It only changed to SI 9.

So either the sign next to the hole is wrong, or there is going to be yet another change when the new green will be used.

Anyway I hope to play exactly the same game as last week on my next qualifying game :)

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for the dog,

This dog really liked walking the golfcourse with his master,

He even liked the golf balls so good he didn't just bring them back, he even swallowed some of them..

Yummie .. GolfBalls :)

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Alexander

What about letting us know when you figure out a livestream is going on :)

thnx in advance ..

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Broekie

It's obvious why you played horrible, I took all the good shots that day.. although I didn't really felt like playing good still..

But I'd blame the drinks :)

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