Time Off For Golf: Round 3, More of the Same

It was a little foggy and muggy when I teed off this morning, but I figured I could handle it just fine. Besides, I generally prefer overcast skies to sunny ones when I play. I decided to ride rather than walk today, as I figured my legs might actually fall off of my body when I played softball tonight if I walked this morning. I managed to tee off by myself, although only 9 of the holes were going to be familiar during this round. Potomac Ridge has 27 holes, and they kind of send you out on whichever ones they like. The ones I'm most familiar with are the Meadows and the Hollow, and I played those yesterday, but today I was supposed to play the Meadows and the Ridge. I had only ever played that Ridge once before, and I didn't particularly like it. I sure was glad I didn't try to walk it yesterday, though, as it has a lot of up and down that would not have been very agreeable to a walker.

On the 6th hole, I had hammered a drive right down the middle and had about a 150 yard uphill approach left, when the two guys in front of me waved me up. Things were moving pretty slowly, and I didn't think I'd be able to play through anyway, but I went ahead and stepped up to hit my second shot. I promptly chunked it about 30 yeards down the fairway. I guess I couldn't handle the pressure of an audience. I then hit the third shot on and three-putted for a double bogey 6. The guys, whom we'll call Mike and Alan (because those were there names), invited me to play with them for the rest of the round. I think maybe they wanted to be able to watch my bumbling to make themselves feel better. So I finished out with them, and they were very pleasant and helpful, in that they were able to tell me where to aim on some of the trickier Ridge holes. They didn't try to tell me what I did wrong when I screwed up, either. And they had plenty of opportunities.

Despite hitting the first fairway, I really didn't drive the ball very well today, although the numbers say I somehow managed to hit 7 of 14 fairways, which isn't bad for me. Still, I mostly managed to keep the ball on the course. I still couldn't hit my approach shots worth a damn, either, and I really need to get those going if I hope to break 90 before going back to work. But I did chip it a little better today (albeit not well), and my putting might not have been quite as bad as the last two days. The round broke down like so:

• Birdies: 0
• Pars: 5
• Bogeys: 7
• Double Bogeys: 3
• Triple Bogeys (or worse): 3
• Fairways hit: 7
• Greens in Regulation: 3
• Bunkers hit: 2 (I got up and down for par from one of them)
• Putts: 34
• Total score: 95

I'll take it, too. A tiny bit better this round was, if only because I had one more bogey or better. I'm headed down to Charlottesville to play with my college roomie. We'll see what happens down there.