Another round round-up. Less than a foot away from my first eagle in YEARS.

But as I breathed in my post-round lager, I couldn’t help thinking about THIS shot below, the result of my third shot to the par 5 3rd hole

Summary:
9 holes played at Billingbear Old, Berkshire. (Front 9 – meaning the 8th is a 210 yard par 3)
Par 34.
Score 38. (+4 over).
0 Eagles. 1 Birdies. 3 Pars. 5 Bogeys. 0 Double Bogeys. 0 Treble bogeys or worse.
FIR: 33%
GIR: 33%
Up and downs: 33%
Average putts per hole: 1.78
Average par 5 score: 4!
Average par 4 score: 4.8
Average par 3 score: 3.3

No Shot Scope medals unlocked during this round.

A nice nine holes last night in again a bit of a blowy westerly and a mixed set of feelings supping my San Miguel afterwards…

Firstly it was just nice to get out again with a little more of a settled bag (more on that soon) a body that didn’t feel too achy and in a little sunshine again.

I didn’t really play too well to be honest – once again I just couldn’t seem to get any distance from my driver, so ended up hitting the new “black rabbit”, my trusty 3 wood, instead of driver after a while – which incidentally I used for shot of the day (SOTD) (photo below) on the uphill, 210 yard par 3.

Oh sure, I hit a few nice shots, but nothing really to blow your (or my!) socks off. One of my better shots you can see below (a 125 yard 8 iron approach to the treacherous 5th green).

My shadow is pointing at my pitch mark here! (Approach to the 5th green).

5th green (from the “magnetic” lake to the right of the green, AFTER I took my shot from the rough on the hole (some 125 yards left of this shot).

The same photo as before, just zoomed in, so you can see the result of my approach.

But as I breathed in my post-round lager, I couldn’t help thinking about THIS shot below, the result of my third shot to the par 5 3rd hole.

I had hit an OK (if shorter than I’d have ideally liked) drive, up the middle of the fairway and then got a pretty-good low, running 4 Wood which pulled up just a few feet short of the fairway bunker, 50 yards shy of the green. I took a 7 iron for a bit of a chip and run on… got it PERFECT and watched with widening eyes as it bounce and then ran and ran and ran directly towards the hole at a good speed.

It must have missed the cup by an inch or so (I’d hit it from the direction of the top right hand corner of the image above, so you can see how close it must have been). To be honest, for a good few seconds I thought it HAD to go in.

But missed it did, and I’d therefore missed my first eagle for years. I don’t actually remember when I last got an eagle – but it hasn’t been this year, nor last, nor the year before I think. So we may be talking four or so years ago – or even longer. (Remember I didn’t play golf (I took a break) between ohhh… 2005 and 2014 or so).

A 10 inch tap in for birdie (my first for some time) didn’t really ease the pain, although I suppose it helped a little.

This birdie was my 5th of the season, although three of those came at my big round at Hazlemere three months ago, and the other one came the week before – on my very first hole of my season proper!

Things to work on? Everything to be honest. Especially finalising the top of the bag. I think I’ll just carry 3 wood now, but I’m not sure.

One final thing – the course (Billingbear) is in BEAUTIFUL nick right now. The greens are superb. The photo below (unfortunately of a dead purple hairstreak butterfly on the 2nd green) and certainly the photo above of my “almost-eagle” should prove that to anyone reading this blog. The course is in such good nick, that I’m almost (ALMOST!) thinking of rejoining as a handicap member again. (ALMOST!!!).