A bit of a last-minute change of plans for me today - the guys I was expecting to play with decided not to go out due to the weather (pretty heavy rain up until about half an hour before our tee time), but I was able to join up with another three guys from our regular Sunday group. They were playing in today's optional Stableford competition - I wasn't going to play in this if things had gone as planned, but decided to give it a go (even without any time for a decent warmup...)
The weather cleared (as per the forecast), so ended up being pretty decent for late October (mid-50s, dry although a bit wet underfoot in places, with a strong breeze). I didn't start off all that well (was +4 after 4), but got it going a bit better through the rest of the front nine, then holed a nice putt at the 11th to get back to +4. I had a really good chance for another birdie at the 13th (tee shot to about 6 feet on the par 3), but misread the putt, but then made up for it by chipping in for birdie after missing the green long at the 14th. I made a couple of really nice par saves at 16 and 17, then almost made it three in a row at the last (hit a 40-yard pitch to 6 feet, but read too much break into the putt...) 73 (+5) for 35 points was a lot better than I was expecting - was nice to pull off a few good shots when I had a decent score going.
(We're a little over a week away from switching to the new handicap system here in the UK. The initial estimates of new handicaps became available yesterday, but I suspect that it might be a bit lower after today's round - 3.0 at the moment (compared to 3.6 on the current system), but 73 on a 70.8/121 course is likely to make a little dent in that...)
