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Round 3, National Club Pro

Today didn't go quite as well as we expected, but didn't go any worse, either. I will say this, though: if we didn't have bad luck, we wouldn't have any luck at all. I don't think we've gotten one good break in three rounds.

But some of the luck was our own making.

On the first hole Dave fatted an approach and left himself a difficult pitch that behaved oddly on the green. Couldn't make the par putt to save it, and we're +1 through one again.

On the second we again took what we thought was a good line but put the ball on a hill that sloped up to a volcano bunker. I talked Dave into 7I and the ball was as high as a gap wedge, but landed on the green. Whew! Par. It's on this green that one of our, uhhh, more unusual playing partners began using his wedge to putt. He'd later switch to a hybrid. He'd broken his putter on the first hole, as we'd later discover.

Unfortunately, we bogeyed the third after just missing the second shot and leaving the third on the big slope in front of the green. Bogeys at six (a fat sand wedge, ouch) and eight (chips run out more when you pitch to an elevated green) put us at +4 for the round.

The good news is that we clawed back with three birdies in a row at nine (("How's that for a ringer score, eh? 7 and then 3." Dave said to me. I thought his approach might put him on TV as it sucked back nicely to the pin.)), ten, and eleven. Dave even made the "birdie streaks" section of the live scoring page. The bad news is we gave them right back with some lousy lies and luck. On the uphill 14th, we had 3-hybrid to the green. Dave absolutely nailed the shot. If you'd given me even odds on the ball going in the hole for a double eagle, I'd have taken them when the ball was 50 yards short of the green it was that good. Turns out it landed a foot shy of perfect and in a wretched lie in a bunker about as large as a toilet seat. The sand was a foot deep - ya think the ball's gonna plug? 😛

We stemmed the bleeding until the 17th where we somehow flew the green by 30 yards. The lies were just set up to jump - thick but incredibly dry grass. Dave played an incredible pitch from over the green to a tap-in par. We birdied the 18th after again being able to go for it, this time with a hybrid.

+8 for the tournament and another early tee time. We'd need a 66 tomorrow to get into the PGA, and while possible, it wasn't likely.