Now that the ole’ website is back up (thanks Jay! – we’ll talk this week to square away payment and transfers!), I figured I’d do a belated quick recap of King of the Lake. Overall, I came in 45th out of 59. That’s slightly above where my rating would put me. Which means what? Well, I played slightly above average. This is verified by the ratings, which were all between 5-25 points above my rating (1-3 strokes a round). They’re also slightly generous ratings because of the high caliber of players, so I’d say I did about average to a stroke better per round. For a guy who doesn’t practice much, I’ll take it.
What I walked away with was my first tournament (ever?) where I was totally consistent. To course par, I was +1, +1, +1, +1 for the four rounds. Hard to get more consistent (though I would have preferred scores UNDER par.) Here’s a course breakdown:
Round 1 – North Tahoe – 59 – I was most disappointed with this round. I’ve shot a 49 in a comparable layout, but I was just having trouble getting my birdies. From a missed up on hole 4 (translating to a bogey) to an abysmal 4 on the must-birdie hole 6 (a 4, really?) – the round bit me from the start and I was +3 after 7. I managed to get it back with birdies on holes 9 (GREAT drive), 10, and 12. If I managed to finish the round at par, it would have been a very solid round. Instead, I hit the first available tree on holes 13 (my nemesis) and 14 (my other nemesis) and missed the birdies on 16 and 17. What’s worse, after an amazing drive on 18, I 6′d the hole after a HORRIBLE second shot and a missed 15′ to end the round. With even a few tweaks, I should have been in the 57 range. My drives were good, just *slightly* off.
Round 2 – Turtle Rock – 62 – I had some great holes – 4ing the super long hole 16 (which I’ve done both tournament rounds I’ve played that layout) and 5ing the hardest hole on the course. But I just wasn’t getting my birdies anywhere. Again, up shots had much to do with it. No aspect of my game was terrible this round, but none stood out.
Round 3 – Zephyr Cove – 55 – This round I felt like I was clawing my way out of holes the entire round. I didn’t get my first birdie until the 14th hole of the round, and only had 2 on the round. If it wasn’t for an AMAZING up shot on my last hole of the round (after hitting a tree 50′ off the tee), I would have broken my +1 streak. This was the course where I had to make up strokes, and I simply didn’t. 14 or 15 of the holes are birdie-able, and I got 2. My inability to play must-deuce golf comes back to haunt me.
Round 4 – Bijou – 63 – For the course I liked the least, I played very solid here. My drives were good, and a few up-shots cost me some early strokes. But since this was a course where you had to save 3s as opposed to must-deuce, I played it very well. I pulled out some 3′s on par four holes, and even had an ace run in there (for a drop-in deuce on of the few holes you could reach on a drive.) With 4 holes left, I was playing super hot. In those last four holes, I had 3 bad drives, 2 bad ups, and 2 bad putts. That translated to +2 (when really I could have easily been -3 for that stretch), which turned it from a 1000+ rated round to just a little above average round.
Overall, considering my lack of practice and the still competition, I was happy to play four consistent rounds, although I certainly would have liked to have been even 3 strokes better a round, which could have been accomplished in up shots alone. I need help upping. Maybe I’ll get a Ridge and it will solve my problems, because we clearly know the error is with the disc, not the operator.
