After a distant second at a B tier in July, what happened in round two last month at the previous IOS B tier event, and after a frustrating Labor Day event, dedicated time to learning Eagle Ridge for this B tier since my goal for the second half of 2024 was winning my first B tier event.
Last year at Eagle Ridge, I barely finished due to my right knee which gave out the previous month but for 2024, the course seemed shorter but it took a couple trips of practice rounds to realize how to take advantage of that.
Knowing there was a one round event the Friday before, decided to take a vacation day to get a competitive round there and was well matched in a group where we all finished within 2 shots of each other and star framed the 10 foot high basket on #9.
That round turned out by rating to be by two shots my best there, my 5th best for the year and among the top 15 lifetime played.
In the IOS event on Sunday, had a different plan for 8 tee shots because of what I learned on Friday and three of them produced birdies (and would have been 4 but a 22 foot putt hit cage). Along with repeating birdies on the three from Friday and my first ever birdie on #11, the score for the 18 was 4 shots better than my personal best at that course from Friday and because I made the birdie to finish the round on a temp hole, overall round rating was lifetime best and I had a 6 shot lead.
Had to eat lunch at car to avoid bees and when I got up, could barely put weight on right leg. Realizing sitting would just cause white cells to accumulate, had to try to walk it off. With another dose of arthritis cream, got ready for round two in winder conditions.
As the round progressed, the person from third became the closest to me but after his tree problems on 8 and me birdieing 11 from the long tee on one of the best drives of my life was up 10 with 5 to go.
From the long tee, 15 for me is a drive that heads to the tree that is OB on the right then turns left into the fairway helped by the wind. I failed to realize it was more a headwind than right to left and hit the tree and was OB with 250+ to go.
Third shot rode the OB line and disappeared over the crest unsure if OB so I threw a provisional that was even more right than the first one so threw a second provisional which could have been 7th while opponent had a doable shot for 3.
Fortunately, the first provisional was safe (the second was also) but missed the 40 foot bogey putt and lost 2 shots.
After hitting an early tree on the par 4 16 still shook from almost doing a "Tin cup", played for bogey since the hole has a hazard rule adding a shot off the fairway while my opponent made a birdie which I never saw someone make before.
Number 17 has a mandatory from the long tee which I badly missed. I was fortunate my opponent hit a tree on his approach and I only lost one shot making the lead 5.
On the tee for the par 4 18th, was in panic mode and instead of doing one of the two things in my practice rounds that worked, did something else and was way right. After pitching to the fairway, my opponent tried two hero shots from a bad spot but hit trees both times. Though I got a bogey going +6 in four holes, my opponent's double bogey had me up 6 going into the last hole.
Though we both screwed up our drive on the final hole, I managed to save par while he didn't making the margin 7 shots.
The feeling was relief more than anything and was mentally and physically exhausted. One I got home, could barely walk and it took 30 hours to gather enough energy to post this.
When I got home today from a frustrating day at work, used the eraser on the whiteboard for the events over the next month realizing that after posting 8 of my best 15 lifetime rated rounds over the past 11 months and with leg pain and a right arm that pops including while setting up putts in round two, rest and recovery needs to happen.
Other than the "Freedom round" next week and maybe one round heading to Con On the Cob, have no specific plans to play for a month.
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