One of the weaknesses in my game right now is the dreaded “big number.” I’ll end up taking an 8 on a hole and lately it seems to end up being the last hole of the day pretty often. On Friday I shot 46-42 with an 8 on hole #18 at Swan Valley. Saturday I shot 39 and didn’t record anything but 3s, 4s, and 5s on the scorecard at Twin Oaks back nine. Sunday it was 47-45 at Currie Municipal West in Midland again with an 8 on #18.

Today is the first day for one of my golf leagues, so I’m looking forward to it. Last year in this league I took the trophy for low actual of the year with one under par 34. All 27 holes at Twin Oaks are wide open, so I can play a simple grip it and rip it style of play. Wish me luck!

I’ve been keeping track of every round of golf I play since 2000. I’m a little weird like that. Does anyone else do this? I don’t keep track of putts, birdies, sand saves, or anything extravagant like that. Date, course, and score are what I save into a little spread sheet which is has a sheet for each year, and then a stats sheet which gives some averages. I use Google Docs and Spreadsheets so I have easy access to the file wherever I have an Internet connection. Today Google added the ability to insert charts in spreadsheets, so I figured I’d have a little fun with it. Click each chart for a larger version.

This first chart shows my average 9 hole score by year. I’ve come a long way since I started playing golf seriously back around 2000. I like the downward trend in scores!

The second chart shows the number of 9 hole rounds I’ve played each year. Looks like the previous chart is definitely affected by this chart. The more I play, the better I get, and the more my average drops.

This chart shows the number of times I’ve shot in a certain range each year. Looks like I haven’t been in the 60s in quite some time. Now if I could eliminate the 50s that creep in once in awhile I’d be happy.

The final chart just shows the best and worst scores each year. Last year I managed a 1 under par 34 during league play. Hopefully I can improve on that by a stroke this year. I’ve already beat last years worst score by 2 strokes, which isn’t something I’d like to do.

If anyone is interested in the spreadsheet I use, I can try to explain it and make it available for download. The only goofy thing is when I enter a new year, it takes a little spreadsheet knowledge.

It didn’t take long to fail at one of my goals for the 2007 golf season. Yesterday I went to Valley View Farm Golf Course. After 5pm right now they have all you can golf with cart for $15. It’s supposed to be $30 for a two-some, but the guy let me get away with the rate for just myself.

I started on the back nine, hitting two in the water and taking a 9. Shot 2 more balls in the water on the round and also lost a ball somewhere in the open (it must have plugged on my drive). I managed to make a birdie on #18 and somehow ended up shooting a 46. Not bad with 5 penalty strokes and the 5 shots from drops. I started out a little rough on the front nine. Took a double bogey 6 on #1, then hit my tee shot into the water on the 180 yard par 3. Ended with a 6 on that hole. From there I made a nice string of bogeys and pars.

On #8 I topped my drive which barely cleared the water in from of the tee box. Pull-hooked a 3 wood, but it caught a tree and dropped down. Tried to make a dumb shot out of the trees and nearly missed the ball. Duffed a wedge into a little dip in the fairway where water sometimes runs through. At this point I’m not quite sure what happened, but I missed the ball twice in a row. Ended with a 10 on the hole. Hit a horid push slice on #9 off a tree and who knows where it ended up. Played a provisional off the tee right down the middle. Why couldn’t I do that the first time? Ended with an 8 on the final hole for a total of 51! OUCH! 18 strokes on the last two holes to break 50 in the wrong direction.

I starting driving back to 10, but a group had just teed off and I saw some people on the holes in front of them. With the scores I had just shot, I decided to call it a night. I played 18 holes of ugly golf in 2 hours. At least I got to enjoy the weather…

On Saturday we played 18 holes at Sandy Ridge. Nine holes would have been plenty. The weather forecast was calling for a high just over 50. It never went above 42 and with the wind chill it had to feel about 35 or colder. I shot a 41 on the front 9 finishing double bogey and bogey. I started out good on the back being 2 over after 5 holes. I think that’s when the cold really started to set in and I finished with double bogeys on each of the last 4 holes to shoot 46. I could barely close my hands at the end of the round.

Yesterday was a bit warmer and we shot 9 holes at Beech Hollow. I shot 9 over on the three par 5s and 3 over on the other six holes with one birdie. Took a nine on the last hole to shoot 49, one stroke short of a half-century.

I definitely need to hit the driving range and work on my tee shots with the driver. I topped a few yesterday and it was ugly!

It would be nice if the weather warmed up pretty soon too. I have a Tuesday night league starting next week at Twin Oaks and a Thursday night league starting the week after at the Bay City Country Club.

So far in 2007, Michigan has has an unusually warm spring. We’ve already had a couple of 70 degree days and set a few temperature records along the way. In the Saginaw area, our snow has been gone for weeks. It’s actually been a pretty slow week as far as rain is concerned for this time of year.

Why does all of this matter? Because the golf courses have had some time to dry out and are in pretty decent shape for the end of March. In fact, I’d say they’re in excellent shape for March. I can say this because I’ve only golfed in March once before. It was last year on March 31st and we had to drive all the way down to Indiana to do it.

Last week on Sunday and Monday, March 25th and 26th, I played 18 and 9. Sunday was a extremely soggy, but Monday was much better. I ended up shooting 41, 44, and 45. Yesterday I went out and played another 18 holes. I started with only 9, but after shooting a 39, I thought I was up for another 9 and a shot at breaking 80 for the first time in my life. Ended up with a 46 for a total of 85. Still nothing to complain about though, because I was golfing in March. The previous earliest I had played a round in Michigan was April 5th of 2005.

I’m thrilled with how my game has been this past week, but I’ve been quite a bit more prepared than any other year. Back in February I made a trip out to Phoenix, Arizona to take a training class for works. My golf clubs made the trip as well and I played 94 holes of golf that week. It was 70-75 degrees almost every day and I loved every minute of it. After class I’d head straight for one of the local city courses and jump right on the course. $30 for endless golf and a cart. Can’t beat that rate during their peak golf season.

The courses were nearly empty as the sun went down. You’d never find that in Michigan during peak golf season. You’ll have people going out to play 9 an hour and a half before dark starts with a packed course and no chance of finishing. In Phoenix I was able to fly through 18 holes in 2 hours, even with people slowing me down on a few holes before allowing me to play through.

In preparation for the trip I had hit my clubs once at the local golf dome. Somehow, it was enough to get me by. My first 9 holes of the trip wasn’t pretty and I shot a 56, but the rest of my scores were very respectable at 41, 45, 41, 46, 47, 47, 49, 45, 41. I’ve had the golf itch ever since I came back to Michigan and have made it a priority to hit once a weekend either at the golf dome or another local range which has heated tee boxes. I think it’s really going to help my game as the spring and summer progress.

A couple of my goals for this golf season are:

• Keep my 9 hole scores starting with a 3 or 4. I don’t want to reach the half-century mark again this year.
• Break 80.
• Get a hole in one. (When isn’t this a goal for a golfer?)
• Break 40 more consistently.
• Keep a slower controlled swing.
• Talk Dad into making a trip to Ireland.

So there you have it. I’m back and excited about golf again. I never meant this blog to be on any type of posting schedule, but I guarantee you’ll see more action around here than you have in the past five or six months.

The 2006 golf season might be over for me. I’d like to get out for a couple of more rounds, but I get so busy at this time of year and the days get shorter. It was the best summer of golf in my life. I shot nearly 2 strokes better per 9 holes than last year. I learned a little bit of course management which I think was a big factor, but I also learned a few things about hitting my driver. I still hope to get out at least once more to use up a free round I have, but we’ll see.

I’ve been working out for awhile and started lifting heavy weights over the last week. This should really help my swing out because as the summer went along my back started to feel the effects of playing nearly 1000 holes this year. Maybe I’ll even get a little extra distance out of my driver next year.

Wow, has it really been over a month since my last post here? I’ve got in a ton of golf over that time and had some great rounds I should have written about. On August 15th I shot under par for 9 holes for the first time in my life with a 1-under 34. The next day I want out and shot 80 for 18 at Bay Valley. I had my first sub-80 round in the bag and blew it on the last two holes. I had shot 38 on the front nine and ended up with a 42 on the back. On the 17th hole I bombed my best drive of the day on a par 5. It was 300+ and left me with an easy 7 iron into the green. I duffed it about 70 yards. Then I duffed a SW and hit a 2nd SW to the back of the green. Took 3 putts from there. I needed a par on the last hole to shoot 41 for a 79 and actually had a 5 foot putt, but missed it. But It was still my best 18 holes ever, so I can’t complain too much.

I took my yearly trip to Boyne near the end of August for 3 days of 36 holes a day and played decent golf there. My 34 ended up being the best round of the year in our golf league so I got a nice little trophy. I also ended up with the lowest handicap in the league with a 2. I can shoot some good golf, but there is no way I’m a 2 handicap. Our league only uses your last 3 scores and the handicap can only go up by 1 each week, but there isn’t a limit on how far it can drop.

I’ve golfed a lot more this summer than I have before. Before the summer is over I’ll have played somewhere around 1000 holes of golf. I still can’t believe it when I think about that number. My back needs the winter off!

It rained for a good 3 or 4 hours in the Saginaw area, so the plans I had to play 9 holes with a few friends were canceled. While sitting at home after dinner I realized the sun came out and it cleared up. Sidewalks and driveways were starting to dry out. So I jumped in my ride and went a block to a 9-hole course called Pleasant View. The name does not fit the course. Only on “special” occasions will I play there.

My main reason for going to play was that I wanted to hit some clubs around the golf course. The course wasn’t very busy and I was playing for myself, so I had a chance to hit extra balls around while waiting. I played 2 main balls during the round and would try out some short wedges or other shots as I had time. I even hit 3 with my driver off the first tee after using a 3-hybrid to tee off for the shots I was counting. When all was said and done I shot a 44-42. The part of the round that really killed my scoring was putting. With all of the rain we had received, golf balls were plugging on the green. If they did manage to hop, it was backwards. Putting on soaked greens is an entirely different story. I took 18 and 19 putts which is 4-5 over my average for 9 holes.

All in all, I was pretty satisfied with my play. When I hit driver I was crushing it down the middle, and then from there my wedge shots were solid. When I had longer 2nd shots into the par 5s I came through. I hit a great 3-hybrid to the front where it hit the bunker rake someone had left in the wrong spot. On another par 5 I hit 3-hybrid to hit the fairway, staying safe, and then blasted a 5 wood right next to the green. Made a nice chip, but missed the birdie putt because of all the water. The greens were the wettest I’ve ever seen, but I’m not worried at all about my putting. I’ll admit I didn’t take much time putting either, so things weren’t being lined up. I wanted to really focus on ball striking because the greens weren’t playing like any other greens I’ll face all summer.

If I can keep the driver and wedges straight, I’ll be all set.