For my first round of the year I chose to play my favorite local course Timber Point. They have 3 nine hole courses (Blue, Red and White). When you play 18 the Red is used for the front nine and the Blue for the back nine. The back nine makes you think you’re playing a different course but I’ll go into that more when I review the course in a later post.

I started the first hole playing by myself and as usual the first drive wasn’t pretty but by the third hole I had warmed up more long clubs. I had also joined a group celebrating their buddies 30th birthday. We were playing as a 5-some but no one seemed to care as long as we let them play through. I was playing my typical game but I felt like I was striking the ball more solidly off the tee and with my long irons but as usual my short game was a disaster. Chipping and pretty much any other shot requiring a wedge was either duffed or skulled making my new friends wonder how I could be so crisp with my other clubs.

Some Positive Stuff Some Not So Positive

I started to really get into a groove on the 5th hole when I hit an 8 iron just past the green with my 8 iron. My new uPro GPS from Callaway really helped me out there because I knew I was 134 yards out and I can start to dial in how far I hit each of my clubs which I had issues with last year. I’ll have more to say about the GPS in an upcoming quipment review after I get a few more rounds in with it, but for now all I can say is that even on a course I have played two dozen times it came in extremely handy.

The front 9 was without any real disasters until the 8th hole. This is always my worst hole featuring a water hazard along the whole right side of the tee box and along the dogleg right (a slicers nightmare!). I haven’t ever hit a tee shot that didn’t end up in the drink and this attempt was no different. The penalty stroke and two extremely poor wedge shots lead to a 4 over par 8 on this hole. I did make up for it in the file hole of the front nine by hitting a long but errant tee shot followed by nine iron on the green within 6 feet of the hole. Even though I pushed the birdie putt left I hit the 3 foot par putt and had my first par and G.I.R. of the year. I also kept myself from shooting 60 on nine holes for the first time.

The back nine was a similar theme with some shots that stick out but nothing super spectacular. Since we are playing along the Great South Bay the hole way the wind was pretty difficult to deal with. I was also able to ruin some more great approach shots with horendous wedge work and very marginal putting. All in all this round gives me hope for the rest of the year. This 114 stroke round is definitely not my best score but I think that after a couple of early season lessons I might be able to make some big strides toward breaking 100.

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