a good walk spoiled: part three

I went golfing today, for the first time in exactly one year. It's only the fourth time I've gone in Chicagoland. Since Matt and Niraj went last week, I proposed we play a dollar-a-hole Skins Game!

The highlights mark the skins won, the darker highlight represents double skins, carried over from a previous tie.

It felt like I played well. On the 2nd, 4th and 6th holes, I landed it on the green in one. Of course I three-putted all those holes, leaving me with bogeys on all of them. I went into the water on holes 1 and 3 (and hit the ball over the fence on #9) adding three penalty strokes that I usually avoid. Though looking at my scores, this was my worst outing. And it was much closer than our outing last year (9 strokes separating first and second, compared to 23 last year).

Matt had the best putt of the day--a 20-footer on hole 5 that tied the skin.

And Burnsy had the best hole score of the day--the only par for any of us. (The first par that I've recorded for Niraj on white tees.)

As for the skins, Matt had putting chances to tie on #3. His double bogey on #5 capped off by his great putt, included a penalty stroke for taking a drop after hitting into the long weeds. *And on the last hole, he had a short putt that would have won him the skin at 7 strokes that he pushed past the hole. In frustration, he conceded the hole. So I've docked him a penalty stroke, since his remaining putt (8th stroke) was a tough uphill shot.

And as for the 9th hole skin, Burnsy and I had to settle the tiebreaker on the putting green. Burnsy chose the spot and hole, and I beat him by a stroke, 4-3, to get the final skin. Matt chose not to participate.