I said it once before, here, but it’s worth saying again…sometimes you just click with a place. Coggshall Park has been that place for me, at least when it comes to playing tournaments. Last weekend marked my fourth tournament played there and the fourth time that no one has been able to beat me in regulation. That’s now three wins and a playoff loss. Suffice to say, I can’t wait for the next one.
The first round didn’t start off all that spectacularly with five pars in a row, one of which a par 4 on which I missed a 25 foot putt. I felt like I couldn’t quite get on track because if I wasn’t hitting a tree part way down the fairway to eliminate my birdie chances, I was missing the birdie putt anyway.
I finally did find the groove on the sixth hole of the round (hole 1) by driving to about 15 feet and making the putt. From there, it was clean driving and good putting, picking up birdie deuces on holes 4, 6, 8, and 9. Then once we looped back to the back nine, I fell out of the groove again. I found trees halfway down on 10, 11, and 13, and on hole 12, a short downhill ace run, I overthrew the basket by 30 feet, missed the birdie attempt and the par putt as well to take my only bogey of the round. Not the way I wanted to finish up the round, but thanks to a great front nine, my score was still a solid 52, good for a one throw lead.
The second round, this time beginning on hole 1, started much better than the first. Drop-in deuces on holes 1 and 2 followed by pars on 3, 4, and 5 allowed me to extend my lead from one to three throws over my nearest chaser. Another run of birdies on six, seven, and eight enabled me to get out well in front of the rest of the card. After a par on hole 9, I ran off three more deuces in a row on holes 10-12 to pretty much put the tournament away. From there, my focus switched from staying ahead to maybe breaking the course record.
That switch in mindset probably wasn’t the best decision in the world in hindsight. I did cruise to a five-throw win, but I failed to get the course record or even beat my own personal best (tied it instead). I parred five of the six remaining holes and bogeyed the sixth (the par 4 17th) to finish with a 49.
Overall, I’m happy with the way I played. Winning can do that, of course, but I felt especially good about my scores considering the course was playing a bit tougher than it has in the past. Having not played it this late in the summer before, the lines and landing zones seemed a bit tighter in places because the foliage was at its fullest. When playing it in the spring before everything is in bloom, it felt like a much more open course than it did this weekend. I really only got myself into real, hack and hope kind of trouble on one hole, which fortunately was late in the day when things were pretty much already decided (hole 17).
A weekend off for some family fun this weekend, then back at it on Labor Day weekend with a two-day, four-course extravaganza sandwiched around more family fun. Two streaks will be on the line at that one…I’ve cashed at that event three years in a row and I’m also riding a five tournament cashing streak currently. Hopefully I keep both streaks alive.
