Yesterday we played a round at Los Verdes Golf Course (public) in Rancho Palos Verdes. The course is on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. On a couple of holes, you stand in the tee box and it’s easy to imagine your drive leaving the tee and rocketing over the waves and beyond the horizon.
The 14th isn’t one of those beautiful holes. I shanked my drive off the hozel (the area where the shaft and the clubhead meet), but I hadn’t taken my mulligan all day (I only get one per round) and decided to take it there.
- I sliced the second drive well right into a line of low hanging pine trees, about 100 yards short (and 20 yards right) of a string of sand traps. These bunkers form the inside edge of a dogleg right fairway. And remarkably I had landed to the right of the bunkers. A shortcut, perhaps.
- Still more than 200 yards from the green and trapped under the overhanging pine boughs, I tried to hit a low line-drive with my 3 Iron over the sand and back onto the fairway. The shot struck a branch and fell 40 yards forward under another group of trees and still short of the sand.
- I tried the same low line-drive (given the lie, what were my options?), this time with the 5 Iron since the 3 Iron might carry beyond the other side of the fairway. The shot ripped away, rising, rising, until striking another branch 60 yards ahead and slanting left toward the sand traps where it bounced once and slid to rest 2 inches from the forward lip of the bunker.
- Since the ball had come to rest so close to the lip I couldn’t do much with it other than pop it up out of the sand, which I did, advancing the ball another 15 yards toward the green. At this point, the rest of the foursome was approaching the green contemplating short chip shots or long putts.
- Now just 110 yards from the hole, but with the ball in the rough on the side of a hill above my feet, I swung a confident 9 Iron. The ball wobbled 105 yards forward toward the elevated green — and 15 yards left. It struck the hillside and bounced further left before settling at the base of the hill upon which sits the green (and the hole).
- I’ve been practicing my short game lately and I have a lot of confidence in my pitching wedge inside of 60 yards and in my 60 degree loft wedge inside of 30 yards. With the hole above my head and with not much green to work with, I chose the loft wedge to cut down on roll. I stepped up, set myself, swung, and topped the ball. It struck the crest of the hill and skidded out of view across the green. After climbing the hill I discovered that my ball had bounced into the rough seven yards beyond the other side of the green.
- With the loft wedge in hand — a pitching wedge or even a 7 Iron would have been a better choice considering the amount of green I had to work with, but both were in the bag at the bottom of the hill — I mishit again, this time not accelerating through the ball and it plopped into the rough 10 inches short of the fringe.
- I chipped again, this time clearing the remaining rough and the fringe, but still wound up 20 feet short. After topping the ball I still couldn’t bring myself to swing the club with any force.
- I misread both speed and break and my putt curled three feet below my intended line, continuing on for another eight feet.
- I got the speed right on the eight foot, slightly uphill second putt, but again missed the break as the ball inexplicably rolled right in the last four inches. At this point someone remarked that it was indeed true “that all these greens break toward the ocean. See how that one fell off? Even when you think it breaks the other way.” They all certainly do break toward the ocean, I thought, and if the ocean were any closer, some clubs might start breaking toward the ocean, too. Not necessarily mine.
- I tapped in even though the ocean break commenter had granted me a gimme. The Plok!-plok sound of the ball bouncing into the cup was very satisfying.
On the next hole I drove the ball 275 yards (long for me) right down the middle of the fairway. The 15th is one of those beautiful holes that slopes down toward the cliff’s edge and the ocean.