Golf Confessions

I made a trip to qualify for the British Senior Open in Northern Ireland and the tournament was played at one of the best links courses in the world, Royal Portrush.  This was my first time to be in Ireland and the entire experience was great.  I got over to Ireland about three days before the qualifying round so I could get over the jet lag and play a couple practice rounds.  The first day I went over to Royal Portrush in the morning and got a practice round in on the tournament site because this was the only time that non exempt players would have a chance to play the course except the day before the tournament started if you were lucky enough to qualify.  When I got to the club house there were some guys that I knew standing on the tee and they had room for one more so I joined them.  I was fixing to see just what kind of Irish luck was following me around.
 
Without getting a chance to warm up I jump up on the tee and reach into my bag to take the head cover off my driver and the head of my driver comes off with the head cover.  So here I am holding my driver head in my hand and I do not have a back up driver.  I hit a three wood off the first hole, which was just fine since I had a lot of adrenaline built up.  Then I run into the pro shop and the old Irish pro tells me that he has a shaft just like the one that had broken and he would have one of his assistants reshaft my driver.  My foursome goes out and plays this great course and for the moment I forget about the driver as I am admiring this most spectacular piece of the world.  Even with my luck starting as it had I knew I had made the right decision to go to Ireland.
 
Upon finishing my round my attention focused back on my driver.  I went into the pro shop and the trusty assistant had started the job but had hardly completed it.  I went into the little repair area and finished the job myself.  Next I hurried over to one of the two courses that the approximately 230 players were to qualify on.  The qualifying field is broken into two groups and half will be on each course for one 18 hole medal play on the Tuesday of tournament week.  Each course will have approximately 24 successful qualifiers out of a field of about 115 to 130.  My qualifying round was on Castlerock.  Castlerock, like most courses in Ireland is fairly old and is a lot of fun to play.  I get a young caddy and off we go for my first practice round.  This first round I am not concerned about scoring but getting a feel for the way to play the course and my strategy on some of the tricky holes.  Most of the holes are just what you see but the biggest variable is the wind.  Depending upon the wind direction the holes can really play so different, the wind here can really blow as I was to later learn.
 
I spent the next couple of days playing Castlerock and working on a couple things on the driving range.  My biggest problem was the newly shafted driver.  Even though the shaft was suppose to be the same as the one I had taken out, as is the case most of the time they never are the same.  As with most of my clubs the weight really makes a difference and this new shaft made my driver feel so much lighter.  I spent a lot of time on the practice tee adding lead tape and taking lead tape off.  I never got the feel I was looking for and the next thing I know it is Tuesday and time to qualify.  You will remember the Irish luck I mentioned earlier, well there is good luck and bad luck.  My tee time is the last one in the field, we all start from the first hole since number ten is not at the clubhouse as is the case with links style courses.  Since everyone starts from number one my starting time is quite late in the afternoon.  The day starts off well enough but as time goes on the weather starts to slowly deterate and thirty minutes before I tee it up the wind is bending the flag sticks over and almost touching the greens and the rain is blowing side ways and is some kind of cold.  Playing in the rain and cold is not my favorite but this is Ireland and you do as the Irish do. 
 
This was the worst I had ever played in, including getting caught in the snow a couple times.  I hit some shots with the wind that seem to go for ever and the ones into the wind were brutal.  Thank goodness the days are long in this part of the world because this weather called for some slow play which I also hate.  When you are in this kind of situation you never know what everyone is doing and how the weather is effecting scores so you better just hang in there and see what happens.  As usual I made a couple mental mistakes that I tend to do under these conditions and especially when I have not been playing a lot of tournament golf.  Coming into the final holes the weather was getting even worse which I thought was impossible and I was trying to hang on.  I double bogeyed two of the last three holes and missed a eight foot birdie putt on the last hole for a 81.  Under most any other circumstances this is not a good score and in this case it also proved not to be good enough because I missed the playoff by one stroke.  I was the last man to putt out and there were a lot of guys around eighteenth green to see what we were shooting.  There were several players affected by what I shot when it came to the playoff.  Eight guys would playoff for one spot and I was not one of the eight and I suddenly realized just how close my dream had come to reality.
 
The entire experience was well worth the trip.  Later in the week I went south of Belfast and played another of the great links courses-Royal County Down.  If you ever have the opportunity to play golf in Ireland don’t pass it up.
 
See you on the next tee.