Golf Day — Chaska Town Course
August 6th, 2016 — Day 3–398 days until the 2017 GTC
At 6,397 yds playing from the green tees, Chaska Town Course @ChaskaTC certainly isn’t a long course, but that doesn’t necessarily make it particularity easy either. With water coming into play on roughly 10 holes, and greens that are above average speed, this course can eat you up if you aren’t playing well. That said, if you are accurate off the tee, you approach almost every hole here with an 8-iron or less.
Well, I certainly have nothing to complain about with this round. 43 going out, 41 coming back in for a total of 84 is an excellent round for me. The best 18 holes I’ve played all summer as a matter of fact.
Highlights/Lowlights of the round
Hole #1–Par 4–388 yds
After a drive down the middle on to a steep downhill fairway, I had about 85 yds to the pin. I tried to hit a 3/4 sand wedge, but got a bit too much of it and put it about 5 yds past the green. From here I chipped the ball back to within about 10 feet of the hole. The highlight here is the putt I made for par, which was not only downhill, but also had about 3 to 4 feet of right to left break. perfect speed, perfect line, fell right in the heart of the cup. A great feeling to start off the round.
Golfing Note: for the past few years, one of my games biggest weaknesses has been my chipping within 20 feet of the green. I have always been quite timid and scared to make a mistake and that has resulted in me either chunking the ball or blading it over the green at least 2 or 3 times per round. This has been an issue that I am starting to overcome. My fix has been to open up the club face a bit and try to swing more with my wrists, similar to the type of swing I would hit a short sand shot with, rather than a swing that looks more like a putt, as many other golfers are comfortable with. While this swing obviously opens me up to skulling the ball thinly, It also forces me to be a bit more aggressive and less timid, which seems to be resulting in more consistent positive outcomes.
Hole #2 — Par 4 — 426 yds
Well, this hole was a disaster. Not a terrible start here, hitting my driver about 265 yds, but I pulled it a bit and put it in the rough just to the left of the left side bunker. This left me 145 yds out of the rough to get to the green. I went with my 9 iron, but hit it both long and right of the green. The rough behind the green goes down hill and I found my ball in jail in some trees. the grass was mowed between the trees, so the lie wasn’t terrible and my swing path wasn’t impeded, but I definitely had to navigate my way through some trees to get back up to the green. I hit a low PW with got out of the woods, but stayed about 10 ft short of the green. From here I hit a SW on to the green but still about 15 feet from the hole. I managed to smash the putt about 6 feet past the hole and, of course, missed the putt coming back. so, 4 shots to get on the green and 3 putts for a seven. Pretty textbook case of letting a bad hole snowball into something much worse. A little more focus and I may have saved bogie, and definitely should have saved double. Didn’t though.
Hole #11 — Par 4 — 443 yds
Hole #11 is a hole that I have often said is the hardest hole in all the courses that I frequent. The difficulty in this hole certainly begins with the length, as a 270-yard drive still leaves you with another 170 to the green, but that is still not the biggest challenge. The trees lining the right side of the fairway are quite large and the branches hang over to where a ball would fly through the fairway. This means that if you hit your ball in the center to right side of the fairway, you have no shot to the green. This leaves only the left half of the fairway as an option (but don’t go too far left, as there is woods and water about 5 feet off the edge of the short stuff). Additionally, If you stay left, that means your approach shot is over the pond, so if you mishit that mid-long iron, you’re getting wet.
I hit my tee shot well, about 265 right down the center, leaving myself with a 7-iron from 175 coming into the green. I hit what felt like a perfect shot, but it clipped one of the branches hanging down off the right side and knocked the ball down, ending about 60 yds short of the green in the fairway. Fortunately, I stayed calm and followed that up with a 1/2 swing sand wedge to about 8 feet of the cup and then nailed the putt for par. This is the first time in my life that I recall putting a par on my scorecard at #11.
Highlight — holes 11 through 14
Coming off of that par at #11, I was really locked in. I went on to par the next 3 holes to bring the par streak to 4. The only real mistake I made in this stretch was misjudging how far away the bunker was on my drive on #13. I hit a drive dead straight but rolled through the fairway onto a severe down hill lie in the grass surrounding the bunker. fortunately, I was able to hit that next shot about 5 feet to the left of the green and then up and in for par.
Highlight — Par 3’s
Par 3s were really strong for me today as I made par on all four if them. I hit the green in regulation all the par 3’s and two putted in except hole #4, where I put the ball just over the green by about 5 yards, but was able to get up-and-down with a solid chip to about 5 feet.
Lowlight — Birdie putts
I had birdie putts on 6 separate holes today, and I would say that at least 4 of those were within 12 feet, including a 5-footer on hole #6. I manged to miss all 6 of these opportunities. Not to say that settling for par on 5 out of 6 of these holes is a bad thing at all, but there is no way I am getting into the 70s without hitting a couple birdies. If I want to take the next step forward, I need to capitalize on some of these.
Golfing Note: Considering the number of hours I’ve spent working o my game this summer, and the number of trips I have made to the range, I have basically spent zero time on the putting green, outside of a few putts before every round. my 0 for 6 on birdie putts, probably suggests I need to balance out my practice time a bit better.
Summary
All-in-all, I would say that today was an exceptional round. Hitting the fairway on 12 of 14 holes really put me in position to do well, and crisp iron shots were consistently making their way to and around the green. The 35 putts (3-putting on my triple and one of my doubles) was really the only thing that was in great need of improvement. other than that, this was a top notch round that I was quite happy with.
Fairways & Greens,
Miller
