A very enjoyable evening of golf for me today at the best course that I've played.
A few of the guys in the group that I reguarly play with are caddies at Muirfield (which is a few miles down the coast from my home course), and they occasionally get the opportunity to play the course and invite a few friends to make up a fourball. We teed off just after 4pm, finishing in fading light at around 8. The course was in great condition - not as dry as it has been over the summer but still playing firm and fast, and the greens were as good as any I've ever putted on. (I was glad to have taken a few minutes on the practice putting green before we teed off - the ball just seemed to glide across the surface...)
There was enough wind out of the east to make things challenging - distance was easy but control very difficult downwind (I played the 410-yard 1st hole with 3-wood and 50° wedge, and almost went through the green from 115 yards out on my second shot), the holes into the wind played very long (the 3rd, at 370 yards, needed solid shots with driver and 19° hybrid), and it was very easy to lose control of the ball on a sidewind shot - had a couple that went a lot further than I expected because I hit a shot that rode the wind.
Muirfield is a tough but fair course - it's very easy to get into a lot of trouble (there are fairway bunkers in the driving area on all of the par 4s and 5s, and almost every one of those bunkers forces you to pitch out - no going for any sort of distance unless you get very lucky), and the slopes, mounds and undulations around the greens are a real challenge for anyone's short game, but it's very possible to score well if you hit solid shots into the right places (which I did on the first few holes, with three pars and a birdie at the 4th - it got quite a bit harder after that, with a few slightly misplaced shots putting me in a lot of trouble on several holes). I ended up with a round of 82 (39/43) - a few too many loose shots, but also some really nice pitches and bunker shots to save shots from difficult positions.
