HotShot Blog

Yesterday I played two rounds at Mosholu Golf Course, a public 9-hole facility in the Bronx. It was a beautiful day - partly cloudy, 80 degrees, great breeze. For the first time, I kept fairly strict score. I shot 99 on a par 60 course. For those not in the know, that's about as good at golf as someone who just learned long division is at math. It's quite pathetic, but also fairly average. Less than 1% of amateurs actually shoot par.

So why am I so terrible? I broke up my score into shots approaching the green and putts.

My putting was poor, but there wasn't too much I could do on that front. The greens were often in disrepair, with more dirt than grass. Hole #9 in particular had almost no grass, which meant the ball kept rolling past the hole on a miss. Still, I putt most in 2 or 3 - I wouldn't expect better from a novice golfer.

What really killed me was poor approaches. I need quite a lot of work on chipping. Many times I hit over the green or short of the green. Hole #6 was brutal. Weeds completely surrounded the green, making chipping incredibly difficult. I wasted at least 7 shots on that alone. In fact, if I had reached the green in one stroke less than par on each hole, I would have shaved 15 off my score, bringing me to 84 and a 24 handicap. I could live with that.

Of course, in the long term I will also need to learn how to putt well. Even if I had two putted each hole, I would have shaved 11 off my score.