By The Skin of My Teeth

the match play tournament began this past weekend at shadow ridge. this event kind of sets up like an ncaa tournament bracket. the people with the lower handicaps are the lower seeds and the ones with the higher handicaps are the higher. the great equalizer (if you want to call it that) is that the lower handicap golfers have to give the higher ones strokes on the hardest holes. the formula for figuring out how many is you take the higher handicap and subtract it from the lower handicap and there is your number. for example, i had to play bill ivey who is a 16 handicap. i am currently an 8. if you subtract 8 from 16 then you have the number of strokes on the hardest holes that i would have to give him (8). there is only one amendment to that formula. if one opponent plays another opponent from a more difficult tee location, then he can subtract 3 strokes from the higher handicap. the higher handicap golfers play from the shorter tee location (whites). the lower handicap golfer have an option to play from the longer tee location (blues) and subtract 3 strokes from the higher handicap. now that we are all straight, i chose to play from the blues which made the final stroke total a 5 stroke advantage for mr. ivey on the 5 hardest holes.

so here is how it went. i had to give him stroke on holes 5, 7, 9, 10, & 15. by the time we got to hole 5 we were even. i won hole 1, tied holes 2 & 3, and lost 4 on a 4 ft putt (makes me mad). i lost holes 5, 6, 7 (seven he had a stroke) which put me 3 down. i proceeded to win hole 8 but gave it back by losing 9 which was a stroke hole. i am down 3 at the turn. i then lost 10, giving up a stroke, and when into hole 11 down 4. if you are not familiar with golf, being 4 down is horrible. but, going into 11 i turned it around. i won 11, 12, 13 (he double hit which is a 2 stroke penalty on that hole) 14 and went into 15 with it back at all square (which means we are even or tied). 15 was his last stroke hole. he bogeyed leaving me with a 10 footer for par to tie since he had a stroke. i drained in which kept it at all square going into 16. i birdied 16 to go 1 up and we tied 17 with pars. the match was dorme for me (which means that i am 1 up with 1 hole to play). if we tie i win, if he wins we go to extra holes. to make a long story longer (just kidding.....not really) i birdied 18 to win the match 2 up. a miraculous turn around that almost got the best of me. if i play like i did this past saturday against anyone else, i will definitely lose. i just got the late breaks and he got the early ones. well, better late than never.