I played the stroke play qualifying round of the Esmond Trophy at North Berwick this morning, always a highlight of my annual golfing calendar - and last year's event was cancelled because of COVID, so doubly nice for that. Good weather, with the wind coming out of the east - prevailing wind is out of the west, so the front nine played easy and the back nine hard instead of the other way around. I hadn't played for several weeks, and I wasn't hitting the ball far, but I was hitting it straight, and there's a lot to be said for that: I had two birdies and four bogeys on the way out, and I started home into the wind with a bogey (missing a two-and-a-half-foot putt) and two pars. In fact, the worst mistake I made through 12 holes was not trusting myself to hit a driver off the deck on the par-5 8th - I could have been on the front of the green in two if I'd thought I'd hit it straight, but instead I went into a bunker 40 yards short of the green and made a six.
The 13th hole at North Berwick is one of the most famous holes on the course - the green being guarded on the right by a stone wall:
I hit possibly my best drive of the day and was left with 175 or so to the middle of the green, into at least a two-club wind. I thought about hitting an iron - and almost certainly should have, and certainly would have if I'd realized the pin was at the front of the green - but again didn't trust myself and tried to hit a smooth 3-wood. I came over the top of it, pulling the ball toward the thick grass long and left of the green and very close to the red-staked penalty area. I played a provisional, as a) I hadn't realized there were red stakes there, and b) I wasn't sure the ball was across the line anyway, and weakly pushed it out to the right. We didn't find my first ball, and although if I had to bet my life on it I think I was probably in the penalty area, we couldn't be sure, so I had to go back to the provisional, now playing five. I then made the cardinal sin of coming up short with my pitch, the ball plunking into the base of the wall and sticking within six inches of it; I stupidly chipped out to the right (left-handed), skulled my next chip into the bank beyond the wall and the green, and failed to get up and down from there to record a 10. And then I came off of my drive at the 14th, found a deep fairway bunker and made a double. And then (after parring the Redan 15th) I drove into a burn at the 16th and made a triple.
I managed to finish par-birdie, so for my best 15 holes today I was +2, and for my worst three holes I was +11. Ouch. So there's very little chance that I've qualified for the match play on Monday/Tuesday. At least this is a year where I couldn't win the tournament anyway - because all being well, I'll fly to Tokyo on the day of the quarterfinal matches - so it's not a massive opportunity lost. And I am happy with how I played apart from that one hiccup which compounded itself.
(By the way, this was the first round I've played since before the pandemic started where the bunkers had rakes next to them. It was really satisfying to rake a few bunkers again!)