Goofy Golfer

I was around Malaga last week and in the mood for 18 , the course closest to where we were staying was Baviera Golf so I called them and booked me a start time.

It was supposed to be a 20 minute drive, however with the new clubhouse (open since 2 years apparently) the 2 minutes from the highway are more like 7 with all the roundabouds you need to take to find the back of the course and the clubhouse parking.

So with less than 20 minutes before my startime I rushed in to the large clubhouse to pay my greenfee and pick up some rental clubs

The ticket said 13:14 ... almost ready to tee of an elderly guy showed up too at the first tee , apparently he was the first of 2 more to come and I was scheduled in with 3 german folks to play the course.

So no practice swings, "new" clubs .. and a course you never played before... obviously a recipe for disaster ..

I totally missed my T-shot .. rather than an expected 160-200 meters I usually do with MY 4 iron I shot like 120 or so ... but my ball was on the fairway .. unlike most of the other players balls. and it started rolling downhill..
Given that this was a shortish dogleg and I cut some corner I had only 130 to the green or so... I assummed I had to take more club with this set than I`m used to ..
I was right .. my second shot landed on the green, and after 2 puts I walked of to the 2nd tee with a par secured.

From there on my game got worse (what did you expect) ... Baviera is what it looks like ... a Tourist course .. fairways the sizes of ballrooms .. only your worst t-shot will miss the fairway .. and even then you're not really in trouble unless you have a tree blocking your swing.

My biggest problem however was getting used to the clubs.. the course isn't that long ... I can imagine people driving a couple of the downhill par 4's and on a lot of the holes my t-shots given the circumstances , a pretty dry course, should end up within pitching distance to the green, however none of my shots went the distance.. same with my approaches to the green.. I always lacked 10-15 meters .. even when taking an extra club ...

What struck me was that most of the water on the course was so fake... you'd see a man created , plastic covered hole in the ground filled with water. Ugly ...

Another annoying part was they way they blocked access for buggies to the greens. A white cord about 1 meter from the ground blocked access.. to my swing... Clearly some of the elderly people with buggies just drove around them and ignore the restricted area.

I think my first good T-shot of the day came at the 9th hole where I finally outdrove my fellow players (mind .. they using a Driver , me a 4 Iron) Needless to say my second shot reached the bunker 3 meter short of the flag after which I 3 putted ...

The second goot shot was my T at the 10th , a 160 meter Par 3, which I had no clue how to tackle with the set of clubs in my bag. A 5 would most certainly be to short and end up in the water, but given a good 4 , it would end up way behind the hole .. in the bunker, which I could only leave after 2 attempts :(
My crowd went wild because of an 170 meter shot ... I went frustrated coz of not getting out of the bunker ..

There's 3 holes on Baviera that I'd nominate in my favourite hole short list ..
The 12th, is a 532 meter (back tees) par 5 , where you have to negotiate yourselve a way trough a smallish valley ... not the typical footballfield size fairway but precision needed.

The Par 3 15th played from the alternative tees at the back of the 14th green, my fellow players told me you could choose between the 2 sets of teeboxen , they all went for the spectacular view... a 123 meter carry but probably 70 meter downhilll flight and somehow some people even assumed they needed drivers for that ... ok so there was some water in front of the green .. but nevertheless my first badly hit 7 iron was about 3 meter short of the green .. and my provisional 2nd was right at the back of the green. A well stroken 8 iron should have done.
I had to hit a provisional one as the hole played right into the sun and nobody had actually seen where any of the balls went.

The 17th is also worth a mention... It starts out over water and then you reach an uphill fairway .. your perfect shot lands on the top of that fairway where you have a clear view to the green which lies under you and where you realize it is a sharp dogleg.. however if you don't reach the top of the hill you have a blind shot to the green.. and I wasn't really pointed out the good direction for my shot .. .. but the views on that hole were great ..

I managed to end the last hole in the same fashion I played the first, par... so I was in happy mood when driving back home after almost 5 hours on the course ..

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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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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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The advantage of being a high handicapper is that you have so much you when doing things good, even partly

The joy of reaching a long par 5 in regulation with 3 great shots.
The joy of being able to rethink those 3 shots ..

And the fact that you can just forget about that stupid 3 put as a bogey on a par 5 isn't really bad for you afterall :)

Lots of low handicappers would be frustrated with that hole because of the 3put ..

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How to figure out the PAR of a hole :)

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