A Sunday Afternoon 9 at Juniata

Juniata Golf Club
Philadelphia, Pa
Yards: 2805/2185 - 4990
Par: 34/31 - 65
Rating: 63.2, Slope: 106
Score: 48/Front Nine
Date: July 26, 2009

Late this afternoon I headed off to Juniata Golf Club for a quick nine holes, hoping to build on some of the success I had during Friday's round. I played the front nine and got off to a blazing start, with a two-putt par at the 1st Hole and a one-putt par at the 2nd. I made a sloppy 6 at the 3rd Hole after pushing my tee shot right behind one of the few trees between the 3rd and 4th fairways. I lipped out par putts at the 4th and 5th Holes, so I was playing with relative consistency. But at the next two holes, my game came apart rather quickly. I hooked my tee shot badly at the 6th and managed to hit a 7-iron over the trees to right side of the slope leading up to the green. But my ball had come to rest against a small stick, and removing it would have caused the ball to move, thus giving me a penalty stroke. I tried to chip it with a sand wedge, but the ball came up just short of the green. After chipping on past the hole, I had my first three-putt of the day and a 7. At the 8th, I hooked my tee shot wildly into growth along the left side of the fairway. I dropped, then pulled a wedge to the left of the second bunker on the left of the green. I skulled an attempt flop shot way over the green and into the creek, so I re-dropped, pitched over the bunker and two-putted for an 8. At the 8th, my tee shot went left of the green into a marginal lie, which I had to play like a bunker shot. The ball came out much better than I expected and rolled all the way to the back right of the green. From there I three-putted for a 5. My tee shot at the 9th went through the big tree on the left and finished in the left rough about a 130-yards from the green. Playing uphill, I hit a 7-iron to 20-feet behind the hole, which was in the very front left. I three-putted for a 5 and a nine-hole score of 48, three more than I had on the front on Friday. My putting was just a hair off today, but I felt I was still making a better stroke than I had been. Also, my elbow didn't hurt as much as it had been, so the ice treatments are hopefully helping. I iced my elbow twice tonight for about 30 minutes each. One other thing became clear to me during today's round. Although the Gap Wedge that is part of my Wilson Staff Di7 set has a stronger loft, it consistently comes up short from 100 yards, a distance I have been able to routinely hit the Gap Wedges from my previous iron sets. So this evening, I replaced the Wilson Di7 Gap Wedge with a TaylorMade LCG Gap Wedge. This will hopefully help me hit it closer to the pin from around 100 yards.