The results are in, amigo! What's left to ponder?

Wow, what a day! It was definitely a fun afternoon for Casa CHAnG to hang out at the Shoreline Golf Links with the company of Lisa and Drew. It was the first time ever for Andrew and Gerald out on a course and the first time Chang or I had been out in a while. Nevertheless, armed with low expectations and a high tolerance for futility, the four of us embarked on an adventurous nine holes. We started the afternoon off full of enthusiasm:



The starting hole was a daunting par 5 that was almost 500 yards, so there were definitely some jitters. We hacked a bunch to get started, lost at least three or four balls as we slowly trudged across the fairway. All of us pretty much got toasted and it was painful with the group behind us totally waiting for to get on the friggin green and playing out. Here's Andrew on one of the over forty strokes we took combined on the first hole:



I found my way into a sand trap on this hole and it was pretty stiff so it was crazy hard to blast out of. Notice that I've already swung through the ball and yet it's still barely moved:



We didn't fare much better on the 2nd hole and it was looking like it was going to be a long day, but we started to show some signs of life by recording a couple triple bogeys on the 3rd. And then came the 4th hole, a nice little par 3, about 136 yds over water to the green. I was up first with the honor and hit what I thought to be a fairly solid 5 iron which I can generally count on for ~150 yds if hit cleanly. It went way up, but then seemed to get caught in the strong winds, and finally promptly splashed about 10 yds short of the dry land. At this point, Chang already had out his driver, which seemed absolutely ridiculous, but he got a hold of it and sent it off near the pin. When we walked over to the other side, it turns out that his ball was only a few feet from the hole. He just missed the birdie putt, but completed the two putt for our first par of the day! Going through the pics, he clearly has the best form and that certainly came in handy on this hole. Look at this.. textbook!



It was at this point that we started picking up the quality of play. The 5th hole a bit of water to start with, but being the veterans we now were, we easily cleared it. I started connecting well with my 4 and 7 woods and launched a bunch of shots that led to a bogey. Andrew, Chang, and I picked up reasonable bogey scores on this hole and the next couple.

We wound down with the last two holes of the day: a par 3 and another long par 5. The par 3 was about 143 and having fallen in love with my 7 wood, I launched one that hit the slope behind the green and back down near the fringe. It was a back pin location and relatively flat, so I may have even had a reasonable chance to chip in. But my chipping was pretty atrocious and it barely cleared the grass and rolled a couple feet on the green, leaving me about an 8 footer for par. It was pretty straight, so I gave it a solid knock and it just trickled in as it was dying. Our second par of the day!!

The final story of the day would be Gerald's turnaround. After struggling through the early holes finding a rhythm and staying ahead of the previous group, he outdrove all of us on one of the later holes and turned in solid double bogeys on the last two holes. Once he gets it down, you best watch out. This is natural genius heading your way (wait, is this a practice swing?)



It was definitely a fun time out and a special thanks to Lisa for taking these pics with my new digital camera! If all you care about are the results and not the special time we shared together, then the scorecard's below:



Looks like there needs to be some re-seeding for next time :) We're going to try take some lessons staring September, but who knows, maybe we'll head out there another time before then...