Golf in November...in Canada?

It can happen!

The autumn weather has been unseasonably warm thus far and I actually took advantage, playing nine holes on Saturday with Cal.

From the green tees!

The greens are the senior ladies tees if I'm not mistaken, the tee deck that my mother plays from. The course measures out to a little over 5000 yards from there, with a course rating of 65.5 and a slope of 116.

We just wanted to have some fun and practice our driver and wedge games.

"So, this is how Tiger feels everywhere he plays", Cal said at one point.

It was tremendous fun. I drove the ball pin high left on the par four first, duffed two chips and made bogey to Cal's par (he missed a short birdie putt).

On the second, we both drove well inside the 100 marker, pitched on and two putted for pars. Cal's drive on three was way right but almost pin high while I drove perfectly onto the front fringe of the par four. I'd get up and down for birdie while Cal parred again.

We'd both par the fourth hole and I'd bogey the fifth to drop one back of Cal, as we were playing a big $5.00 match. We'd move to the 15th hole from here, as there was a bit of a backlog on the front nine. Cal DROVE INTO THE WATER on the 15th but still made par, matching me.

The 16th was fun - we both hit great drives but Cal actually drove into the flat, only about 120 yards away while I had about 160 in. I hit an 8-iron to about 12 feet but missed the eagle. We'd both birdie, putting Cal at one under and me at even.

However, Cal would fail to get up and down short of the green on 17 so we were all even going into the 18th, where I would CHIP IN from just in front for the birdie and the one shot victory!

Great fun! Of course, my one under 35 really is more like two over from those tees but I digress...we'll be doing that again sometime soon, I guarantee. Maybe even this coming weekend, as temperatures once again are expected to be over 10 degrees celsius.

Course was dry and in pretty good shape, considering all the work they are doing with drainage and renovations. The tow rope that helps players walk up the valley from the 16th is now gone and looks like it was never there. Great work by the grounds crew to make things look natural.

They also extended the tees on the par five 6th hole and the par three 17th, with the sixth now playing 585 yards and the 17th is now extended to 245 yards! Wicked! I'm not looking forward to the bitching from some of the guys we play with next year, as I fully expect a few guys to drop out from playing the tips.

Westmount photo tour coming soon, I promise!

Nothing to See Here

I have now gone through my longest stretch of 2009 without golf since the actual season started - 22 days - and it's looking like I'm done for the year.

The weather hasn't been that bad, to be honest, but a very busy month off the course (wife birthday, son's birthday, wedding anniversary, work) has meant many parties, lots of money spent on the family and little time for golf.

Our course was aerated after Canadian Thanksgiving and the greens still are in rough shape three weeks later so there hasn't been an awful lot of incentive to get out there anyway.

I might start playing a bit more poker online in November. I've played very little over the past three months, much to Cal's chagrin, but anticipate having a bit more time in the evenings to play and make some more money.

I still have a few course writeups to do when I get the chance as well and will eventually recap my pathetic year on the course (scoring-wise) sometime in early December. Who knows...maybe I still have one round of golf left in me too!

Putting the Clubs Away for '09?

Canada celebrated Thanksgiving this past Monday, giving us crazy golfers in the Great White North an extra day to play this weekend.

Despite early morning temperatures hovering around 6 degrees celsius, I played both Saturday and Monday. Saturday was supposed to be "Pic's Revenge", with Pic being our course superintendant and it's his opportunity to set the golf course up as ridiculously difficult as possible.

It's always a fun round of golf but heavy rains on Friday night meant that despite the pins being set up properly for Pic's Revenge, the actual event wouldn't take place until Sunday (they couldn't double cut and roll the greens on Saturday).

The pin positions were extremely tough, with some of them being two steps from the collar and many were right on the middle of slopes but I made four birdies in my round on Saturday. However, I also made about five doubles and shot an uninspiring 83 on the day.

I followed it up with a much better round on Monday, shooting a 77 (+5) and won some money in skins, Hollywoods and in my match with Cal.

That might just be my last round for 2009, as our club is finally going through with the fall aeration this week and it will be a doozy. The greens will likely be in rough shape for at least two or three weeks and by the time they are semi-respectable, we'll likely have seen our first snowfall of the year. Golf club storage at St. Catharines GCC also ended this weekend, as the club begins the annual process of installing the curling rink.

If I get the chance to play elsewhere in October, I might play once or twice more. I was hoping to finally get the chance to play St. Georges, Hamilton or The National this year but it looks like I'm going to be disappointed once again. One of these years...