My Year in Golf

I’ve been playing golf for maybe 20 years but didn’t start until after graduate school. (For those of you quickly doing math, that’s right, I’m old as hell. We’ll get back to this fact.)

I’ve bounced around in the “bummed if I don’t break 100, happy if I break 90” range for years, but decided towards the end of last year to set a goal. I’d worked my handicap down from about a 21 to a 19, and I thought a goal of 15.0 would be a good stretch target for 2018.

I knew based on some planned trips that I’d have a good opportunity to play a good amount of golf, and as things happen, I unexpectedly got a chance to play even more later in the year to work towards that goal.

Here’s the relevant stats:

Rounds of Golf Played: 43 — I have no way of tracking, but I’m fairly sure this is the most rounds I’ve ever played in a calendar year, and certainly the most in the last 15 years. 

New Courses Played: 21 — I always want to play courses I’ve never played before, and not only got to play some legendary courses this year, I also discovered a few courses not far from me that are quite fun and affordable. 

Average Score: 92.9 — This feels about right. Of late, I’ve been breaking 90 fairly regularly but it’s not nearly as frequent as it would have to be for this to be much lower. A good target in 2019 would be getting this down a few strokes. 

Best Score: 81 (personal best).  This was at Peacock Gap, my local course, and I started with five straight pars, then hit a rough patch for awhile and got it back on track on the back nine. When I’m playing decently, I try not to add up my score on the front nine as I don’t want to be thinking about my score when I need to be thinking about my shot. So glad I didn’t as I went 41-40. (By the way, after those five straight pars, I double-bogeyed the par-3 6th hole. I had another on the back. Even just bogeying those holes and I could have had a 79! Golf is stupid.) 

Worst Score: 106.  At Corica Park South, a gorgeous remodeled course in Alameda. It was so gross I’m not yet over it. 

My previous best score was an 86, several times. In the summer, I shot an 84 and was thrilled. Then, I left my job at the end of the summer, and was unemployed for about two months, during which I played a LOT of golf. Right towards the end of that period, I ended up shooting that 81.   

All of this helped lower my handicap from a 19.0 to … 15.0. Yep, that was my target, right on the nose. (It was down to 14.9 but a last minute round on December 28th knocked a good score out of the calculation. Alas.)

I collect ball markers when I play a new course. Here are the new courses I played this year:

And since we’re doing this, here is the list of courses I was able to play this year (some more than once), with an asterisk if it was the first time I’d played there, which should correspond to the ball markers above.  

• Litibu Golf Club, Puerto Vallarta, MX *
• Poppy Ridge Club, Pleasanton, CA
• Avery Ranch Golf Club, Austin TX *
• Grey Rock Club, Austin TX *
• Plum Creek Golf Club, Austin TX *
• Falconhead Golf Club, Austin TX *
• Peacock Gap Golf Club, San Rafael, CA
• Moore Park Golf Club, Sydney, Australia *
• Indian Valley Golf Club, Novato, CA
• Torrey Pines South, La Jolla, CA *
• StoneTree Golf Club, Novato, CA
• Monarch Bay Golf Club, San Leandro, CA
• Castle Stuart Golf, Scotland *
• Royal Dornoch Golf Club, Scotland *
• The Golf House Club at Elie, Scotland *
• Carnoustie Golf Links, Scotland *
• Gleneagles Golf Club, Scotland *
• Kingsbarns Golf Links, Scotland *
• The Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland *
• Royal Troon, Scotland *
• The Ailsa Course at (cough) Turnberry, Scotland *
• Corica South, Alameda, CA * (remodeled)
• Oakmont West, Santa Rosa, CA *
• Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa, CA *
• Metropolitan Golf Links, Oakland, CA
• Foxtail Golf North, Rohnert Park, CA
• Mare Island Golf, Mare Island, CA
• Hiddenbrooke Golf, Vallejo, CA
• San Geronimo Golf, San Geronimo, CA
• Half Moon Bay (Ocean), Half Moon Bay, CA *
• Baylands Golf Links, Palo Alto, CA *

The trip to Austin was part of a normal boys golf trip we do each year and try to mix it up. However, this year was a big birthday year (50) for that crew, so we celebrated with the trip to Scotland which accounts for nine of the courses above and some of the very best golfing experiences of my life.  

The worst round of the year was obviously the 106, but what was even worse was I’d played the same course (Corica South, gorgeously remodeled what had been a very pedestrian muni track into a course I love…) less than a week prior and shot an 88. I not only had trouble off the tee, but ended up with 40 putts. 40 putts! I’m still considering seeing a therapist about it.

While the best round of the year was technically the 81, I’d have to say the best golf experience I had was playing The Old Course with three of my closest friends. The craziest part of the city of St. Andrews is that you can and do walk on or around the course when you aren’t playing. We’d spent days there, unsure whether we were going to have to camp out and get single tee-times (and play separately) … and at the last possible moment got a tee-time on our last day in town. A lot of memories made that day for sure. 

After considerable debate, the very best golf course I played was Royal Dornoch in Inverness, Scotland. I think if you lived nearby and had time, you could play it 3-4 times a week and depending on the wind and weather, play differently every day. 

In 2019, I have one trip planned but otherwise it’s unsure how much golf I’ll be able to play, but I hope to get some more ball markers and memories, and perhaps a good score or two. 2018 will be hard to beat.