Thursday, August 20, 2009

Ryder Cup 2009 - A Recap

Well, it's been almost a couple of weeks since the Ryder Cup has ended. Ohio, again, came out victorious, much to my dismay. I, unfortunately, had to play on the losing side for the first time in four years, playing for the Michigan side, due to the leveling of handicaps for each side.

My play on Thursday morning, at Thunderbird South, wasn't bad. Since we had only 22 golfers, my opponent and I played a singles match, while the others played alternate shot. We had a rather late night on Wednesday, drinking and discussing the upcoming weekend of golf. With a 7:04 am tee time on Thursday morning, I'm not sure what we were thinking staying up until after midnight. I think I shot an 83, and won my match 1 up. The guy I was playing against had to give me 5 or 6 strokes. He didn't have a great round. He normally shoots in the low to mid 70's, but shot an ugly 81.

The afternoon round on Thursday, at Thunderbird North, was a Four Ball/Best Ball match. My partner and I played a great round, just like how we were supposed to. If I had a bad hole, he had a good one. If he had a bad hole, I had a good one. We won our match 4 and 3. I don't remember what I shot on the North course, but I played fairly decent... probably a low 80's round.

We partied afterwards, again a little too late, with another early tee time on Friday morning. We played at Sawmill Creek all day on Friday. The morning round was another Four Ball/Best Ball match. I played absolutely horrible... and so did my partner. We couldn't get anything going, and our opponents couldn't do anything wrong. They would hit, what would appear to be a bad shot, but they got lucky bounces (which we weren't getting) and the ball would be on the green or close to it. We got beat 5 and 4.

The afternoon round at Sawmill Creek was a two man scramble. I was paired up with a guy that plays in my Wednesday night golf league, so I thought, since I was playing bad, and he had a decent round in the morning, we'd be alright. He could hit a good tee shot, and then let me try to rip one long. At the first tee, he hit probably the worst shot I've ever seen him hit. It might have gone 30 yards, if even that far. Not what I wanted to see to start things off. I pushed one right, but headed for a fairway bunker on the right. Fortuntately, it skipped through the bunker and we had a decent attempt at getting on the green. Well, we got on the green, but were a long was away from the hole. Our opponents, whom my partner played against in the morning round and had said they were all over the place, put one to about 5 feet from the hole. Again, my partner and I couldn't do anything right, and our opponents couldn't do anything wrong. We lost the two man scramble match 9 and 8. You know it's really bad when we had to take a penalty stroke on a few holes, just because we had no other choice. Bad day of golf. I contemplated leaving my clubs at the course and giving up the game for good, I played so bad.

Saturday's round, at Eagle Creek, was singles matches all around. Michigan was so far behind after Friday debacle, we had to win 10 our of the 11 matches, which we knew was not going to happen. I played better than I did on Friday, but not as well as I did on Thursday. I shot an 87 at Eagle Creek, but lost my match on the last hole, 1 up. My playing partner, another guy from my golf league, shot a great round and tied his match on the last hole.

I don't remember what the totals were, but Ohio clobbered Michigan. It wasn't even close. It was a good time, and I did win a few longest drives, so I got a little money back.

Next year, the Ryder Cup will be in Michigan. Not sure about the courses yet, but either way, it should be fun. We may change things up on how we pick teams. Instead of trying to create some parity with the handicaps, we'll draft our teams from a list of people who are playing, on the Wednesday night before the Ryder Cup begins. That should be a fun time.

No comments: