GolfHos

(round recaps of my annual golf battle against my Arch-Nemesis (aka the best man at my wedding))

---------
--Day 1--
---------

Played at a course at Wente Vinyards (http://www.wentegolf.com/)

I'd been to this winery before, but never played the course here.  It's pretty pricey, but we had a nice discount for a noon tee time.

Very tough course, with lots of elevation changes.  Incredible view of the surrounding vineyards on some of the holes. Excellent service by everyone working there, which made the round that much more enjoyable.

They space out the groups very well here, so it was a welcome change from most of the crowded weekend rounds I play in the Bay Area.

Some of the holes were pretty confusing from the tee, but luckily we were paired up with a duo that plays there regularly.  The memory that I will take from this course will likely be the greens.  Extremely difficult to read and judge speed.  There were several greens where the break was the opposite of what we expected (including the guys that had played here before  ???)

Game played: Chicago 39 (http://golf.about.com/cs/golfterms/g/bldef_chicago.htm)
I beat my arch-nemesis by 5 pts.  The stakes were dinner, which, today, actually consisted of steaks (2 lb. porterhouse steaks each)

Tomorrow we play at Sunol Valley - Palms Course, which I would probably consider my home course.  We'll probably play Captain, since we'll be playing with others from my regular group.

wow, nice course and chicago sounds like a fun way to play.

lucky bass turd

grim
 :o

Round two is taking a hell of a long time.  Hope he doesn't run out of balls.   ;)

Hallllooooo, dystopia!!!  Are you out there?  We need a field report!!

---------
--Day 2--
---------

< Message edited by FGIMarshal -- 11/16/06 6:51:51 PM  >

I will alert JDerion so he can moderate the *feces* out of this.

Ha, I suck and never followed up on this.  I can't believe how tired mentally and physically it was to play for 9 straight days (no sympathies, I'm sure).  I barely even came to GolfHos during that time except to make sure the site was still up.

So here's a quick synopsis for day 2.  Then I'm heading to the range and will post what happened on day 3 later.

---------
--Day 2--
---------
Day 2 was at Sunol Valley - Palms.  An ok course, I play here a lot because of online specials.

We played Captain, which appears to be like Wolf, but with some modifications:
http://golf.about.com/cs/golfterms/g/bldef_wolf.htm

There was me, my arch-nemesis, one of my regular playing partners, and his co-worker.

I can't remember the point total, but I came in tied for first with the co-worker.  My arch-nemesis came in third, and the regular playing partner came in last.

On the 17th hole, I was Captain and had the opportunity to play defensively and preserve an outright win instead of a tie, but I decided to make it interesting and lost, so we had a tie for first place.

Normally we play where 4th place buys food for the guy in 1st.  And the 3rd and 4th buy drinks for the top 2 guys.  But this wasn't the regular group, so we just had the guy in 4th buy drinks for the group.

Still, I finished ahead of my arch-nemesis, so in our 9-round series, we counted that as a win.

Ongoing Series: I'm up 2-0

 ;D

3 thru 9?

Heh, these recaps take a lot longer to write than I expected, so after this one, I'm going to be very brief.

---------
--Day 3--
---------

Day 3 was a blast even though it was the worst weather we had all week.  We played at a place called The Ranch, a relatively new course in San Jose.  I hadn't played this course before, but it has a reputation of the toughest course in the area, and I'd have to say that it didn't disappoint.  One review I found suggested to bring as many balls as your handicap and be prepared to lose them all.

When we arrived, it was drizzling, cold, and very windy.  The staff warned us that the course was playing even more difficult than usual, so if the wind was too much, to just move up from the white to the red tees.  Naturally, since we're fools and there was no one behind us, we played the blues, which has a 71.3 course/147 slope.

This was easily the craziest, most tricked-up course I've ever played.  Almost every hole had a forced carry off the tee, but it was made even more difficult because of severe elevation changes and angled fairways, so it was a guessing game as to which club to use off the tee that would carry the hazard, but not go through the fairway into an environmentally sensitive area, all with a major elevation drop.

It was just me and my arch-nemesis that day, and we played Stroke Play.  We were too lazy to calculate the course handicap, so we just went with the difference in our indexes (indices?), and I got 6 strokes that day.

The match went back and forth all day, and I think I was losing by 1 stroke going into the 15th hole.  The 15th hole is their signature hole, a short par 3, with a bunker in the middle of the green.  I'd read about greens like this, but had never played a hole like it before.  The flag was in a position similar to the picture below, maybe a little more to the right, behind the bunker.

(http://www.golfhos.com/images/ranch.jpg)

Well, I tried to shake my normal strategy of aiming for the middle of the green for this hole, but it didn't work, and I hit my tee shot right into the bunker in that damn green.  At least I didn't land on the green on the wrong side of the bunker and have to putt around it.  I proceeded to double-bogey the hole and my opponent parred it.

The next hole was a par 5 and the rain started coming down really hard.  Luckily, my arch-nemesis started playing very defensively with half-swings which he's not used to and he racked up a 10 on the hole as I got a par, and the match swung in my favor.

We both got bogeys on #17, and I still had a two stroke lead going into the 18th.  The 18th hole was more eventful than it should have been as I put one into the water, but I pulled off a pressure 3-footer at the end to win by 1 stroke.

Ongoing Series: I'm up 3-0 (but the tide would turn...)

I wonder if you can just chip off the green over the bunker.   ???

3-0 good job!

well, as it appears a ripoff of the #7?  at riviera, where pros routinely do that,  I would guess so
 8)

that said, i'd love to play either course
 8)