So it's Labor Day and my intention was to both sleep in, and play a bunch of golf. Paul had us scheduled for a 7 am round at the Plateau but given that it was the morning after our Luau, I wanted a chance to sleep in a bit so Paul rescheduled the tee time for about 8 am. (whoo! that's some good sleepin'!) Dave had us scheduled for a second round at 1:00 at Bear Creek. 4 hour round at plat - drive to Bear Creek - no problem.
I showed up at the course and I am definitely still feeling the effect of four of Alex's particularly potent Mai Tais from the night before. I'm playing OK, not great, but not horrible. The round, though, is going slowly. Not insanely slow but enough that it is starting to look like I won't be able to make it through 18 and make it to Bear Creek in time. For some reason, I kept ending up on the edge of bunkers. Not in them, but close enough that I have really weird shots to make. Then, on 11, my phone dies. While up to this point, the battery indicator has been saying it was full, it was clearly confused because it was completely dead. And this is a "smart" phone.... So now I've lost track of my score, it was heading towards a 93 or so but by the time we got to 17, I had also lost track of enough balls and the hour was getting late -- so I bailed :)
I drove over to Bear Creek and got there just in time for us to head out to the first tee with Dave, Clint and Kevin. No warm up, but I had just finished playing 16 holes so I should be ok. Almost. I figured I would try to play with the Titleist Pro V1 balls they had given us at the Plateau Club member/guest. No way was I going to pull these puppies out at the Plat. Tee it up and BAM -- a nice slice well right of the fairway. Ick! Stuck behind a tree, I try a low hook to get out from under the trees but back in the fairway. It does what it's supposed to do, but way too much and hooks across the fairway into nothingness and is gone. Fluff a pitch shot. Twice. End up with an 8 on the first hole. OK -- maybe I don't like Pro V1s.
I return to my old Nike Super Flys and the round immediately starts to get better. a couple of pars and a birdie on the 8th hole and even with the 8 on the first hole, I shoot 45 on the front 9 - Even par for a bogie golfer. The back nine starts off with 2 double bogies but then on 12, a reachable par 5, I hit a great drive into what Dave calls "the go zone" and pull my 3 wood to see if I can hit the green in 2 but I hit it waaay fat and it only goes about 20 yards. Oops ;) My next shot with the same club is great though and it is just left of the green and just past the hole proving that if I had hit it correctly, I COULD have made the green in 2. I chipped it to a couple of feet and made the putt for a par. I also parred the next hole - a cool downhill par 3 that Dave said is always a 9 iron. I've always used a 9 iron before and I've always been short so this time, I took an 8 iron and was pin high about 10 feet left.
The rest of the round was all bogies for another 45 and an overall 90 for the round which is 4 strokes better than any other round there. I liked 18 where Clint was trying to catch me (he was 3 strokes behind) and I pulled my drive so it was just under a tree. I backed into the tree with a 6 iron and punched it back to the fairway, hit a good 3 wood, then hit the green and 2 putted for a bogie. Clint got a par, but I still beat him by a couple of strokes - of course, he had a couple of very strong Tequila shots while we were playing which might have affected his score :)
The best part of the day was my tee shots (not counting 1). My swing plane was consistent and noticeably better than a few weeks ago and the result was much better driving. That was good to see. The Ignite continues to be my driver of choice though an encounter with the Nike rep at a demo day earlier made me start to wonder if I should not only have a stiffer shaft, but also a less lofted head as well. Perhaps I should just try the 9.5° version with the NV65 stiff shaft and see how that works for a while. Hmm......
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