Winning golf competitions doesn’t happen very often, at least not for me, so when it does happen I think it’s probably worth recording.
On Sunday 6th September, I won my first competition since joining Cumberwell Park.
It was a Sunday Stableford played on the temporary Blue/Orange combination. I finished with 40 points, playing off 8, after shooting a gross 74 on the par-70 course.
And strangely, I didn’t feel as though I’d played particularly well.
Sometimes the scorecard tells a different story
I’d played at Cumberwell a couple of days earlier and came away from that round feeling I’d hit the ball better than I did in the competition.
That’s one of the strange things about golf.
You can walk off thinking you’ve played nicely and find the score doesn’t really reflect it. On another day, the swing doesn’t feel quite as good, but you keep the mistakes under control and somehow put together a decent score.
Sunday was definitely more of the latter.
I started with a bogey at the par-five first for two points before making pars at the second and third.
Then came my first birdie of the day at the fourth.
A par at the fifth was followed by a bogey at the par-three sixth and another at the seventh, before I finished the front nine par-par.
38 shots. 20 points.
Nothing spectacular, but a pretty solid first nine.
I knew 37 was leading
When I’d signed in before playing, I’d seen an early leaderboard showing 37 points as the leading score.
So I knew I potentially had a chance if I could put a decent round together.
It was in the back of my mind, but thankfully it didn’t start affecting the way I played.
I wasn’t standing over shots calculating how many points I needed or changing decisions because I thought I might win.
I just carried on playing.
It was also a slightly special round for another reason: it was the first competition Emma and I had played in together at Cumberwell.
Another 20 points on the back nine
The back nine started with a bogey at the tenth for only one point, but from there things settled down again.
I played the next five holes in two over par before finishing the round with a particularly useful run.
A par at the 15th gave me three points.
I birdied the par-five 16th for four points.
Then another par at 17 gave me three more.
That’s 10 Stableford points in three holes.
I’d love to tell you about the brilliant shot I hit to make the birdie at 16, but I can’t actually remember it.
I then finished in suitably ordinary fashion by bogeying the par-three 18th for a single point.
The back nine had taken 36 shots and, just like the front nine, produced exactly 20 Stableford points.
So the final card was:
38 out, 36 back.
20 points out, 20 points back.
74 gross and 40 Stableford points.
Apparently, I’d won
I didn’t actually know I’d scored 40 points when I walked off the final green.
I’d known during the round that I might have a chance of doing well, but I hadn’t been keeping a running total.
It was only when I entered my score into the computer afterwards that I discovered I’d finished on 40 points.
And that was enough to win.
My first competition victory at Cumberwell Park.
The prize was £15 of pro-shop credit, so I won’t be retiring from work just yet.
But that’s hardly the point.
I’ve only recently joined Cumberwell, Emma and I were playing our first competition there together, and somehow I managed to come away with a win.
Golf competitions are difficult to win. You can play well and somebody else will invariably play better. I’ve certainly played enough golf over the years without collecting many victories.
So when one does come along, however modest the prize, it’s nice to enjoy it.
And perhaps the biggest lesson from the day wasn’t anything technical at all.
I didn’t walk off thinking I’d produced some extraordinary round of golf. I didn’t even feel I’d hit the ball particularly well.
I just kept going, avoided any real disasters and added up the score at the end.
This time it was enough.
I’ll take that.
