That 6 on #4 is a double bogey and the 7 on #8 is a quadruple bogey. By the grace of god I lost only one golf ball. My tee shot on #8 bounced into the shrubs so I just re-teed and hit a “provisional.” I couldn’t find the first tee shot so I rolled with the provisional. Even right now as I write this I’m still confused whether it would have been acceptable to drop from where my ball rolled into the shrubs and hit my third shot from there. Whatever. Basically in my first blog I said that you should expect to F-up multiple holes in this sort of manner. I somehow managed to only do it once. But there’s a reason for that. Here are some random notes from my honest-to-god round of golf:

• I can’t emphasize enough that I have never played this well in my life. So let me reiterate that once more.
• I had two tee shots that were within a few feet of water hazards. That is effectively 4 strokes that VERY easily could have been added onto my score.
• Every time I bladed or chunked a shot it was missing safe. Idk how to explain it. It was like an angels in the outfield situation. If I hooked or sliced a drive it was pretty much always a recoverable mistake. In my opinion I’d say this is very abnormal and it felt like a 5 stroke difference overall.
• I had a few tap-in putts that were millimeters from dropping. So not everything was lucky, but I’d say my unbiased opinion would be that I came out ahead in the luck department. It was kind of like one of those football games where you watch your favorite team get 5 hometown calls and get screwed a couple times. At the end of the day you know you can’t complain about the final score.
• I putted 36 times. I 3-putted three times and I 1-putted three times. The other 12 holes were two-putts.
• Because I knew I was keeping a true score I made the conscious decision to do the following things that I would never in a million years do if I was playing with my pals:
  • Played every shot conservatively. I grabbed the 4-iron to lay up as opposed to the 3-wood on multiple occasions. If I was between clubs I would always club up and take a little off my swing.
  • Took some heat off all driver swings
  • Drank zero alcoholic beverages
  • Listened to music on back 9 only (didn’t seem to affect my play)
• These two slower than molasses dickheads were playing in front of me. Instead of letting me play through them they offered to let me join them. On the very hole they made that offer to me I saw them smack the ball across the fairway multiple times. In the interest of not screwing myself up by joining their horrendous play, I said no thanks. And that’s literally exactly what I said. “No thanks, I’m good.” One dude had a ponytail and looked completely stunned that I said no.
• Due to the slower than molasses dickheads, I played holes #14 and #15 twice. On my repeat plays I birdied #14 and bogeyed #15. I didn’t use these scores obviously, but it would not have made a difference. Hopefully this isn’t cheating but I was getting bored from waiting 5 minutes at every tee box.
• This was the first time in my life I have ever been nervous while playing golf. Specifically on the back 9 once I realized I should break 100, then realizing I could break 90, and finally realizing I could break 85. By holes #17 and #18 my heart was legit pounding. I think I even considered doing a fist pump on #18 when I made a 10′ putt. That was by far the most surprising part of my round – realizing I gave a shit about what score I got.