Played my home course on Monday and did pretty well. My putting was not great but hit good drives and good iron shots to the green. Shot a 79 and played pretty quickly. Great way to spend $20 on a nice Monday afternoon after I had worked online that morning :) Some really nice guys on the course this day as well. Always enjoy playing Fossil Creek but I know the course so well that know where I need to hit shots and putts (even if I do not make them). So think I will need to play somewhere else later this week.
After some pretty nasty thunderstorms, high winds and heavy rains on Thursday evening, I headed south on I35 to play a municipal course that I have driven by many times on my way to San Antonio but never played. Hidden Creek course in Burleson offered a Friday morning special of only $25, and this was perfect. I could get in a nice round of golf and still be home in time to clean up and change for a nice Friday evening ;) They do not take tee times from single golfers which always bugs me especially when I have to drive some distance, but they were very nice and assured me that they could get me out on the course pretty quickly and they did - almost as soon as I arrived.
The course is in good shape although for first #12 holes it was cart path only because of the heavy rain from the night before. The rain had brought a cold front through the area and so had to wear long pants for first time on the course since March! When I went out to get the paper it was 49 degrees and still in the upper 50s when I arrived at the course. It did warm up to the mid-70s by the time I had completed the round, however but really enjoyable.
Played with a nice threesome and we had a lot of laughs although our golf sometimes was not so fun; these guys were great and joked about everything. The pace of play was also really good -- no waiting and that was very nice considering there were plenty of folks on the course.
The course has a few quirky holes like #4 which had a split fairway but the hole was only a par 4 and really fairly short. Going to the left added about 50 yards to the hole and does not allow you to use the driver off the tee -- turns a straight hole into a dogleg right, so not sure why anyone would choose to go that way, although on this day with cart path only, going right really made for some long walks. I made a good putt and parred the hole! Unlike Monday, I putted BEAUTIFULLY all day and really saved myself some strokes -- thank goodness. The first par 5 was a real zigzag and forced me to not use my driver off the tee which I dislike immensely as makes it really difficult to have a chance to reach the green in two and thus a birdie.
The last hole had a really odd layout and the forward tee was waaay forward. Now the course does not have 150 yard poles but rather just markers in the ground so really difficult to judge distance and the hole was a major dogleg left but you had to go over a creek as it turned left. Then fairway curved even farther to the left -- almost a U-turn. I could not tell just how far the fairway reached before the creek although the yardage for the hole overall was not great. I played a layup with an iron off the tee to just before the creek, but when I arrived at my ball I realized I could have hit a driver over the creek and slightly around the corner and then had a good shot to the green. Oh well -- play and learn. One hole even had a hedge row in front of the tee box -- never seen that before!
There were also a few holes such as #7 and #12 where the forward tees were really poorly placed and so I hit from the whites on two occasions even though it made the hole play longer. These holes had nice fairly wide fairways, but the forward tees had been tucked on the far edges of the fairway with trees as obstacles. Unfortunately, my iron play was AWFUL all day; I just could not hit a decent iron. Although did hit some good punch shots from out of the trees LOL. At the range on Wednesday I had really been stroking the ball on all my shots (including that dreaded 3 wood) but did not show this day as I shot an 88!! YUCK! Now the really funny part was that I made money while on the course...I received my direct deposit for a project for a publisher while I was on the course (a nice size check) and could read it on my Blackberry.
To be honest, however, my mind wandered quite a bit and just was not well focused on the golf course. But I enjoyed the day and a new course; not sure if I will return as a bit of a drive and the course is fun but not spectacular. By the time I pulled out of the parking lot and headed back north the parking lot was full.
