Goofy Golfer

I wasn't planning to play any golf soon .. with the snow covered fairways many courses are closed . But my homecourse sent out mails this friday that it was actually open for play, well 7 out of 9 holes are open obviously wintergreens open ..even the wintercup and mondays senoirs games were planned to go on as normal as possible. I realized that this might be a once in a lifteme opportunity to try.

My first plan was to go on saturday but the weather didn't really agree with that .. heavy winds made the -2 feel like -20 Sunday morning I was the first on the course ... it felt a bit strange .. the teebox was covered with snow but the greenkeepers were busy cleaning the wintergreens .

After trying to force a tee into the frozen ground I realized I did have wintertees with me. ... I never saw my first ball fly .. but my 2nd ball was OK .. about 30 meters left to the green.

I Played 6 holes ... only 7 were open and the Green keepers were clearing the 8th green so I let them do their job.

I actually even played Par on the 7th hole , altough the snow was flattened on most of the fairways there were some parts where even if you hit it straight in the middle your ball would be lost ... I can imagine that when the snow starts dissapearing there will be plenty of balls found in the middle of the fairway or even 2-3 meters from the greens .. where today you couldn't find your ball anymore. With 10-15 cm of snow.. spotting the difference between a small imprint of what could have been a ball.. or just a bird .. it's almost impossible ..
even with the brightest colored balls.

Anyhow .. some pics are below and more in the Snow Golf gallery !

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It was 7 weeks ago since I had last been on the course, or even hit a ball. Way, way to long ... the first tee was pretty scary.. would I still know how to play ... the sun straight in our eyes, pretty difficult to see where your ball was heading .

Even with no idea where my first shot I was lucky enough to find it in the middle of the fairway I scored bogey ...

The wind was strong, much stronger than we're used to .. so on the 4th tee we ran into the first real problem, both our balls arrived on the 7th fairway I had to play my 2nd shot over the bushes separating both fairways only to arrive on the right fairway with our second shot. 150 meters front green, I pulled out my 5 iron, and told Peter "I'm gonna put it on the green", gues what . . I put it on the green, my GPS measured 173 meter.

The next hole the wind took my teeshot again, my ball enterred the deep rough from where I magically escaped with a 6 iron, well .. escaped .. I almost reached the green.

The 8th was also pretty scary.. a 130 meter par3 , into the wind so I figured a 7 iron should be able to do the trick , pretty straight ball, good direction but it catched the wind , it must have traveled aprox 170 meters, 120 in the good direction then 50 back in the wrong direction. A pitch should take me to the green, however the wind decided against it and pushed the ball into the greenside water. It was pretty dry so I could actualy clearly see and play it. Which I did. My sandwedge came out all muddy and so came my ball it rolled onto the green. I was too lazy to pick it up and clean it and 2 putted. When I picked it out of the cup I noticed it wasn't my ball bummer. The ball I hit was surely my ball I had seen my logo on it , the ball that came out however wasn't, weird.

The final hole was also pretty interresting, the wind took my ball to middle of the the 3rd fairway under the three that splits that fairway in tow... but with a clear line of view to the 9th green. With a no risk , no glory mentality I took out my 3 iron and hit a green in regulation from the wrong fairway. Too bad I three putted ;)

17 pts stableford over 9 holes after not playing for almost 2 monhts .. I was satisfied .. I just hope next round will be sooner :)

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I`m not sure how I should qualify this course, 14 out of 18 holes are flat lakeside holes,
4 holes (6-9 ) however let you play a very different hillside landscape. The difference is significant. I write lakeside but on the front 9 , the water really never plays a big role, maybe when approaching the 4th , a par 5, green you should make sure you don't go for the right side of the fairway , but the fairway is wide enough to capture even a very bad shot.

The back nine is very different , already on the 10th hole the water plays a role protecting the green, on the 11th tee many T-shots reach nothing but the water , you really have to aim left, but not too far left as then the green is blocked by trees. On Hole 12 and 13 , a longish par 5 and a par 4 bordering the course with a right side out of bounds no water comes in play, but on hole 14 the green is once again protected by it. When you are afraid of water you probably won't like the 15the either, a 130-150 meter shot is required to reach the fairway crossing the lake, once the fairway reached you should be safe however. At the 550 meter par 5 16 th, the water comes back into play when you go for the green , but doesn't really scare people. If you are a chicken and your balls already reached the water on the 11th and 14th you might as wel skip the 17 , a par 3 crossing the water again, if you still have enough balls , watch out, when I played it last week the distances on the sings at the teebox were different from the distances on the scorecard, the shorter ones on the scorecard however felt more correct. So make sure not to overclub (as I did) and you are on your way to the par 4 , 18th. A very nice last challenge, a local player told me he never saw anyone reach that green in 2 so far, so they might as well call it a par 5 :)

With a slope of 141 from the front tees this is not an easy course, add the fast greens to that and some heavy weather including rain and thunder and you'll be happy be back in your car or the clubhouse with a 31 stableford score :)

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Being a goofy golfer the good news is that I can improve a lot , so when a couple of months ago I was happy playing 24 points stableford over 9 holes I played +12 on 9, in the meanwhile my HCP went down, but I trumped my best round ever again (and I hope I`ll keep doing that for a while ) , last time I was pretty surpised that I didn't even play a single par in that round , this time it was different, 4 pars, 2 bogies and 3 double bogies, 27 stableford +8 for 9 , heck theres times that I play worse on WGT :)

Now if I could only repeat that during a qualifying round .. but then again .. I'd need to change the name of my blog :)

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It happened to me earlier this week.. I arrived at the course for a late round knowing my regular mate was going to join me a couple of holes later. I started with 2 other players playing steady below my hcp . After hitting my teeshot at the 4th straight on the fairway in plain sight for everyone to see, Peter arrived at the course and I decided to let the group I was playing with go ahead and wait for him. There was 1 flight behind that group and I also let them go trough , politely asking them to leave my ball.. the white one on the right side of the fairway (while pointing to it) where it was ..

We chatted a bit while waiting till Peter could hit his t-shot and when I looked at the fairway again , my ball was gone, It was picked up either by the flight I let pass by, or by one on an adjoining fairway.

At first I assumed it was just out of sight because I was looking from a different angle, but when approaching the place where I should have been it became clear .. the ball was absolutely gone.

So what do the rules say here ?

Frankly I couldn't care, I dropped a ball where I was supposed to find it, hit the green and 3 putted it.

I don't get this.. yes you can pick up a ball you find in the rough, the bushes etc when you know it isn't one lost there by somebody still playing , but picking up a ball in the middle of a fairway when you see there's still people on the that fairway ?

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Yesterday Golf IT Belgium teed of for the first time at the Kampenhout Golf Club .

Around 0800 a the first flight of a group of almost 20 Golfing IT folks started their round for the first event of Golf IT Belgium. Gert Mentens initiated the idea a while ago and since then over 150 people joined the LinkedIn group

6 hours after the first group started the last group arrived in the clubhouse just in time for the prize giving and reception. The competition had the regular longest drive (18), closest to the hole (3) but also a closest to the water competition on the 11th hole Some pretty high scores, up to 49 points stableford , were noted.

All players were given a box of Golf IT Belgium logoballs and a book on Networking, and off course some bubbles.

The next event of Golf IT Belgium will be played at the Millennium Course in Paal on September 18

Gert mentioned that for next year he already planned some interesting competitions such as Golf IT Manager of the year and others, with already committed prizes from sponsors.

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So how does it feel to play your best round ever ?

You'd expect it to feel great, awesome, you expect to play great golf and superb shots.

Well.. it doesn't, I just played my best round ever. 24 points stableford over 9 holes, and it didn't feel great, frankly I didn't even think I was playing great golf. I played 0 birdies, 0 pars, 6 bogies and 3 double bogies. (I`m a Goofy golfer remember :))

You dream of your best round ever is going to be one with perfect teeshots, greens in regulation , some pars and maybe even a birdie.

Nope .. on my first hole I hit a tree left of the fairway .. my recovery shot hit 2 trees and magically hit the fairway again , pitch over the green.. 3 put for 6.

Then a teeshot on the wrong fairway, but bogey as result. The average shots kept coming, no superb straight shots , but always a decent recovery. Like my teeshot on the 7th went in the bushes unplayable.. took the punishment 2 shots later I was on the green, putted for par and nearly missed .. ..

I Putted 6 times for par .. missed 6 times ... but still
I hope to be able to play a similar round qualifying one day ..

Best round ever ... not bad to end the weekend :)

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Last week I got the chance to play 2 rounds at BitBurger land according to their site the course is rated nr 11 in Germany, so I was in for a treat :)

I played my first round on monday in great weather, 21-25 celcius, got a 9h50 Tee time but I could start earlier ... which luckily placed me well in front of the dutch group that was also staying in the hotel.

The first couple of holes went pretty ok , the course isn't short +5 strokes compared to home meant that I had to look at different par 4's as if they were par 5's. Holes like a 193 meter par 3 really aren't reachable on an average day for me .. I do reach the 200+ with my 4 iron but not uphill :)

And no a 397 meter par 4 , also uphill usually isn't reachable for me in 2 either.. at least they called it "Hole in 5" but then why is it a par 4 ?

BitGolf goes up and down like a Jojo.. which makes it a real physical challenge if you are walking the course, again that showed in my score.. I played my HCP on the first 9 .. but totally flunked the back 9

My thursday round was a bit more in balance ... my front 9 were less good.. but I made up for it in the back 9, probably because I was less frustrated by the extreme slow flights in front of me. Really if you are driving around with buggies that does not give you an excuse to drive back and forth 3 times on a hole blocking everyone behind you. If the flight right behind you bails out and the single player behind them closes that gap in 1 hole you might take the hint a bit
earlier and wave him trough before he almost arrives at that next teebox together with you.

Overall BitBurg is a really nice course its just too bad some people have absolutely no ettiquete and don't repair their pitchmarks what results in sometimes heavily tortured greens as you can see in the pictures.

Back home on saturday it showed that I had trained that week.. Played 28 points on 11 holes ...

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So the weather is slowly getting better...

Last week I celebrated 1/3 of a century on this planet,

The goal of having a Handicap Lower than my age has now been achieved , off course, the sooner the better and time would eventually have solved that problem, but it's one goal less :) Fact is that if you don't play enough you don't get better.

But as compared to last year at least we already got a little bit more practice. We managed to play our first 18 hole round already , on Millenium. Last year we only managed to do so the last week of june, And now we also played a round at the Ostend Wellington Course

And I'm are already making plans for more rounds..

Truth is that when in Belgium you have to play when the weather allows it .. I'd love to live elsewhere for a couple of years.. somewhere where the weather doesn't demand prioritizing other things.

Who knows .. one day ..

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So the last round of the year was on newyears eve. Temperature was -6 and we were playing the Cleydael wintercourse but with winter greens.

What can I say .. it was one of the best golf experiences I ever had , I don't know why but the scenery was awesome, we never had cold, and we pretty much had the course for us alone. No waiting, just a round of relaxed golf, enjoying the view.

We both played a really great round .. and in close to 3hours we finished the 17 holes, the 18th doesn't have a wintergreen so it was closed .. 6 pars in a round is great golf to me .. even on wintergreens, afterall your one but last ball has to be within that 1 meter range of the hole.

Fast forward 24 days and the weather finally allowed me to go out again for a round . well the weather didn't really allow it .. the course was still soaked, there was a lot of temporary water on the course and again wintergreens were still in play.

But the first shot of the year was a pretty good one.. I couldn't see it into the Sun, but it fealth great and so was it's result ... just a short pitch away from the green. Too bad I didn't find my provisional ball anymore :)

And so was my last approach of that day, a wedge over a tree that landed at approx 5 cm from the cup, too bad the shot was my 4th as I had to drop outside an overflowing bunker , there was absolutely no way to play the ball form in the bunker :(
(Actually had to look up the rulings on that one)

If the last 2 rounds were the prequel to this next season It's going to be fun,I'm a happy camper with a 47 ss score over 17 holes to finish the year and a 21 score over 9 holes to start the year ..

Now if only the weather would become a bit more accpetable :)

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