Day 74 - Balboa

So I am all fired up to play today after hitting the ball well at Penmar yesterday and my new pre-shot routine.

I hit all 8 fairways on the front - amazing. I ended up hitting 11 of 15 fairways in total.
You would think I would also have hit at least 11 greens in regulations, right? Wrong.
I could not hit an iron to save my life.
I only hit 3 of 18 greens in regulation - awful and really frustrating.
I was pushing everything right. Most of the time, my distance was pretty good - I just hit it to the right. My pal said that I was spinning out of every iron shot.

I will say that my chipping was pretty good. I had a lot of nice chips - anywhere from 30 yards to 12 feet out, I was putting them fairly close - a couple tap ins and a couple long enough where I did not make the putt. Those were the killers to my scorecard. I would 2-putt for a lot of bogeys.

I had a tough time again with my putter. I was not making any medium range putts that would have helped my score. I ended up taking 35 putts - not terrible, but not great - that was with three 3-putts and four 1-putts. I ended the round by 3-putting the last two holes - who does that? Disgusting. I think the last time Tiger Woods did that, he was 4 years old.

My bunker play was pretty good, too. I had two bunkers shots that rolled nicely towards the cup from medium range (about 30 to 40 feet shots) and I had one bunker shot that I hit too far behind the ball and it just popped it out of the bunker leaving me to chip on to the green. Nonetheless, I was very happy to see some adequate bunker play. I have no trepidation any longer when my ball goes into the bunker. I look forward to jumping in there, keeping my head steady and hitting out with some good rhythm (always accelerating with a long finish, but keeping good rhythm).

My focus all week is going to be on my irons - my 7 thru 60-degree - all week. I am going to break 80 by getting on in regulation.