New Hampshire Open | Day 1 Recap
Rollercoaster-ing my way to an even par 70 and tie for 21st ...
If you told me before my round that I would make seven birdies today and only shoot 70, I’d probably be pretty angry. I rarely make big numbers (I don’t think I’ve made a double bogey since my first tournament round of the year) so that would have meant that I had made a ton of bogeys, which doesn’t make me happy.
But golf is golf … and how we feel about a round is relative to the specifics of each individual round. So making birdie on the last to shoot 70 (with my aforementioned seven birdies) actually left me in a pretty good mood as I left the golf course.
I’ll try and keep this post brief so I can focus on recovering and resting up for tomorrow’s round, but this round was EVENTFUL and it’s worth telling the story …
The round started in classic Colin fashion with a perfect drive down the first, a bleh wedge into the green, and a first putt left FOURTEEN feet short of the hole resulting in a three putt bogey. No excuse for it, just a nervous mental thing on the first hole of a tournament I was excited for. I was a little amped up and I wanted to avoid hitting it too far so I overcompensated.
I made par on the second hole, a long par-4 that had been converted from a par-5 for the tournament after a good drive and 5-iron from 212 to the middle of the green. I managed to two-putt from 40 feet and settle myself down a bit.
The third at Breakfast Hill Golf Club is an extremely narrow par-4 with an elevated green and hazard down the right behind a group of tall pines. There is one overhanging tree about 75 yards from the tee box that stares at you like your wife when golf is on TV and you don’t acknowledge her description of this hilarious instagram video she just saw. I saw the tree, I acknowledged the tree (just hit a little fade around it Colin!), I even watched my playing partner (a professional who played really high level college golf) HIT the tree with his tee ball … and yet, I managed to tangle with it and watch as my ball kicked right into the hazard. Drop, pitch out, 6-iron short left, up and down for a double bogey six … leaving me at three over par through three holes.
At this point, I was not terribly happy but I knew I had really only made one bad swing. I told myself to just hit the middle of the next green, make a par, and try and get back to 2-over at the par-5 fifth. Well, I did one better, birdieing the par-3 fourth (made a 20 footer) and then followed that with a short birdie on five. I then proceeded to drain a 19-footer on the next hole for three birdies in a row to get myself back to even par.
A bad bogey on seven from 121 yards out in the middle of the fairway halted the momentum temporarily, but a good par on eight (my birdie putt just hung on the lip) and a perfectly played hole on nine that resulted in me making a 15-footer down the hill for my fourth birdie of the day allowed me to turn at even par and feeling pretty good.
The back nine was just as eventful.
I hit a perfect drive off the tenth, but the ball landed in a bit of hole in the middle of the fairway. I was able to get enough club on the ball to get it to about 20 feet behind the hole and then read it perfectly, dropping another birdie and getting under par for the first time in the round.
Pars on eleven and twelve took me into the short par-4 four thirteenth still at one-under. All three of us hit iron off the tee and had just under 100 yards to the hole. I hit the best of the three shots, leaving myself a left to right 10 footer for birdie, which I’d end up dripping over the left edge. Both Jim and Steven also made their birdie putts and our group had played the hole in a combined 9 shots which was pretty cool.
Fourteen sucked … and was the swing I was most disappointed with on the day. It was playing short, only about 135 yards with hazard long and left. The wind was blowing hard off the right and a little from behind, but I didn’t totally realize it was behind us and thought there was a tiny bit of hurt in it. I chose to try and hit a little pitching wedge and figured I had about 10 paces past the pin to work with if I got too much of it. One bad swing later, and I had gone long left into the hazard. It was a really uncommitted swing, which is what bothers me the most. I don’t think the thought process was wrong, but I didn’t trust myself and pulled it long and left. That led to an impossible pitch and a double bogey … back to even par.
On fifteen, I hit a good approach to 10 feet but my birdie putt just slid by. On sixteen, I paid the price for not having the played the course before and just aimed to the wrong part of the dogleg, leaving myself forced to hit a shot off a cart path (my drop option was REALLY bad so I had to try it). I hit a decent shot but again didn’t know that I needed to miss long rather than short which ultimately led to another bogey.
Two holes to go and I was just telling myself to figure out a way to get back to even par. I didn’t want to waste all of that good work I had done to make six birdies up to that point … and with the wind blowing pretty hard, I felt like even would be a decent score all things considered.
Seventeen was a relatively short, but tough par-3 playing into a strong cross-breeze … I hit an 8-iron a little off the toe and it lost a bit of its power, leaving myself a 50-footer up and over a hill. I hit that about seven feet past and then nailed the putt coming back for par (maybe the one putt I was happiest about reflecting on this round).
Standing on the tee at eighteen, I reminded myself to be aggressive and see if we could make a three on the final hole. A good tee shot left me 113 yards into that same strong cross-breeze and I hit a perfect little knock down 50-degree wedge to five feet. The putt was a little bit of a bender despite the short distance, but I was able to read it properly and sneak it in for my seventh and final birdie off the day … capping off my rollercoaster of a round.
For those of you keeping track at home, I was three over through three, even through six, two under through thirteen, one over through seventeen, and finished at even par. Wowzers …
All in all, lots of good in this round. It’s a nice reminder that I can make enough birdies to compete at the highest level, I just need to cut down on this mistakes.
After the morning wave, I was tied for 9th overall in the tournament. With everyone in and round 1 complete, I am now sitting at tied for 21st and tied for low amateur in the field. The scoring average on the day was 75.7.
I don’t play my second round until tomorrow afternoon, so plenty of time to rest and get a good night’s sleep. I’m hoping to build on the momentum of today and shoot something in the 60’s tomorrow. The cut for this tournament is top-40 and ties so right now I’m in pretty good shape, but it will take good play (hopefully more consistent than today) to make it. If they did the cut today, the +2’s would be. The weather will be a bit better tomorrow so I’m guessing +3 is likely and +4 would be the highest the cut will be.
You can follow along via the New Hampshire Open Leaderboard at the link here and get more frequent updates from me directly @hazardsascent on instagram. I’ll be back sometime this weekend with a more details on round 2 (and hopefully round 3).