Usually when I've played the course I end up panicking and mishitting every shot that I take, so I didn't go in with too high an expectation, although I ended up pleasantly surprised.
I've not been doing any practice with my three wood, so decided to play the entire round with just my irons and putter and hitting straight from the ground, not using a tee.
The round started great with my tee shot from the first going right down the centre of the fairway, probably about 210 yards with my three iron, so to start off on that was perfect and hopefully set me up for a good round, but I didn't want to get ahead of myself.
I chipped onto the green and ended up with two putts to make par, which is unfortunate considering I probably should have birdied it, but I'm not complaining as I'm still very new to the game.
Onto the second hole and again teeing off with my three iron I ended up in the rough to the right of the green with a bunker to get over. I ended up trying a flop shot which I had been practicing after watching some tutorial videos on youtube. It came off pretty well and I ended up again on the green with two putts to score +1 on the hole.
The third hole was where I ended up going downhill. The green is on the other side of a gully, so in order to ensure I missed I was probably aiming too much to the right. Hitting an 8 iron off the tee, I ended up in some extremely long gorse bushes about 50 yards to the right of the green. This was an absolute nightmare to get out of and cost me three shots to get out of it and into a decent position to chip up to the green and putt in one. Ended up +3 on that hole.
The fourth is a downhill shot, so stepping up with my 8 iron I tee'd off this time ending up in the rough again about 50 yards to the left of the green. I managed to chip out, but overshot the green and had to chip from behind the green to get on. I holed the ball with one putt giving me another +1 on that hole.
The fifth is a long straight uphill fairway with a sloping green that if you end up too much at the front will roll back down about 50 yards so overshooting was my aim. I ended up again about 50 yards to the right of the green in some thick rough which chipping out of caused me a small problem of hitting the ball too hard, straight over the green and into rough at the other side. I chipped from the rough into a bunker and then from the bunker onto the green. It took me one short putt of about 3ft to finish the fifth with a +2.
The sixth hole, I tee'd off again with my three iron and ended up right down the middle of the fairway about 45 yards short of the green. A small chip up onto the green left me with a relatively easy putt for birdie, but I rushed the shot and ended up taking two putts making par on the hole.
The seventh I ended up slicing over onto the fairway of the adjacent eighth hole after ending up in the rough to the right of the fairway on my tee shot. My third shot chipped up to behind the green, I chipped from there onto the green for an easy putt to make +1.
The eighth, I tee'd off and again ended up on the adjacent fairway of the seventh, so pulled out my five iron and couldn't have hit a better second shot if I had wanted to, landing at the edge of the green. A quick two putts and I managed to save par.
Finishing off the round I hit the rough to the right of the green, narrowly missing the bunker from the tee. A chip to the left of the bunker left me an easy putt which I unfortunately missed, meaning I missed the chance to finish on a par, leaving me with +1 on the final hole.
My score for the round was 40 where the par was 31, so to finish on +9 is something I am extremely pleased about given my best score so far has been a questionable "48". This has definitely left me finishing tonight on a high and eager to get back out onto the course.
I'd like to thank all those who gave me advice about my mental game when stepping onto the course. Whether I took it on board and put it into practice subliminally or not, it seems to have helped me relax when playing a round.
You can view my SwingbySwing scorecard for the round here.
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