Back to Tournament Golf After Eight Years

Now that it's finally getting warm again after a brutal winter here in Colorado front range, I'm really itching to do more outdoor activities. One of those activities with the lowest barrier of entry for me is golf. I recently played at a nearby city-owned golf course and quite enjoyed it. So as a way to incentivize myself to play more this season, I figured I should sign up for their men's league.

Last time I played in anything resembling tournament golf was over eight years ago in college. I also hadn't swung a club since last July, so I'm definitely quite rusty. Now with this league, I also get my USGA handicap properly established with my current index at 8.5. Today was the first event I participated in and the format was a 2-Man Modified Stableford. My team didn't do too well, finishing tied for last in our flight with -23 points.

My own performance was quite poor: I hit 39 out 48 in for an 87 (+15). The worst offender by far was the tee shot. I could not hit a tee shot to save my life at pretty much every single hole as I kept hitting it thin or not anywhere near the fairway. I hit fairways only five times (36%) and that in turns had a cascading effect to my green-in-regulation, which I only hit seven times (39%). Even though I hit one stroke better than the last round I played here, that round I had 64% fairway hits and 61% GIR.

One saving grace today was that I didn't putt as atrociously as I did last time out: my per-hole average today was 1.9 (35 putts) compared to 2.5 (45 putts). I only three-putted 3 times today, and while that should be zero, it was at least much better than 3 four-putts and 5 three-putts.

Today was frustrating at times, but it was still a fun day out on the course and I met some interesting people in the community. Getting to play in a tournament again put me in a bit of a different mindset and also helped exercise my golf rules muscles (and real muscles too as I walked the whole round). I'll definitely be back doing this some more in the coming months.