Mr. Mushball

Separate subject, but back issues. I'm sure you can get a bunch of advice from those here on the forum, as many of us have or are dealing with something along that line. I've had back issues since I was in a car wreck at 17, so have 30+ years of stuff that did or didn't work. There are three main things I would recommend for you to allow yourself in order to minimize pain and work towards healing. First is get good regular sleep. Sleep hygiene can not be overrated. It's a foundation to so many physical and mental processes that without it you have no foundation. Building on that is minimizing distress (not eustress!). This means good nutrition, healthy relationship habits and not letting things weigh on you. This is not an easy task, but gos so far in being able to be in a healing mode. Lastly, is a good exercise routine that supports the tissues that are healing. Your level of need may vary, but for myself I have worked up to a low-key resistance routine that focuses on supporting the core. For low back issues, you need to gently rebuild your core, glutes and get your hamstrings and quads to work in conjunction. Your hold yourself up from the ground, and tie it all together with your core. If one component in that chain isn't working, the rest has to compensate. This means that the weak link suffers. I myself use and recommend professional help in this regard and can recommend my DC and PT.

Welcome! What part of town are you in? From the courses you listed you are closer to the peninsula, but I could be off. I myself typically play Glendoveer on Sundays (usually a 4th available!) but when I can get a 9:30-10:00 slot on Thursdays I'll play around the various city courses. I tend to favor Heron Lakes as it's closest to me, but like to play the others for a bit of variety. Haven't played Rose City in a while, probably about time. Last time I played Red Tail was early March and was still soggy. I thought it had been dry enough, but that course was 50% water. Glendoveer is a good practice spot on the east side. They have a decent range, plus two putting areas, a chipping area and a practice bunker. The putting green on the West Course is pretty small and is mostly there for warm up and standby waiting for your tee. The East Course practice area is pretty large and has the chipping and bunker area. Glendoveer aslo has a Player Development Program (PDP). It's ~$40/mo and gets you free range balls, or a round + cart for $19. Pretty good if you play 2x a month or hit the range a bunch. I play weekends there as my buddy and I became members at the start of the pandemic and we were getting into golf. Another good practice spot on the east side is Eastmoreland. Not only is it a beautiful course and nearly as challenging as Red Tail, but has a larger practice area. Separate putting and chipping greens, plus a protected chipping area with a small bunker at the end. This bunker is less maintained that the one at Glendoveer, which gets the same treatment as the course pits. As a YA! Golf person, you may get a discount at Colwood. They also have a pretty good range and large putting green. This one is more contoured than the other two, so adds some challenge. It's typical of the 9 greens on this par 3 course. I like to use it to practice my short game as a non discount round is $18 and they have a punch card. It's managed by Kemper Sports, the same folks that manage Heron Lakes, so they share instructors. PDX has a PDX Players Card for the Portland Parks courses (Red Tail, Heron Lakes, Rose City, Eastmoreland and Colwood). It's a once a year purchase on sale soon around mid May. It's $750, but gets you discounts throughout the year. Details are at https://www.portland.gov/parks/sports/golf, same page as YA! Golf. Might as well stick with YA! if you still qualify. Not sure about west side options as it's out of the way for me. Randy ( @Vegan_Golfer_PNW ) could tell you more as that's his haunt. I believe he typically plays Forest Hills, which is a very fun and pretty course. Just watch out for the ground squirrels. I'm hoping we can find a time for local forum players to get together this year and get an event organized! Let me know if you want to join on a Sunday afternoon or Thursday morning.

Congratulations to all of the winners! Looking forward to see how the next two battles go. This is tight competition for sure!

Date 03/14/2024 Course Name Heron Lakes Greenback Gross Score 121 Course Handicap 42 Gross Strokes over/under par 49 Net Score to Par 7 Net Score 79 Net Birdies or better Longest Drive SIM Round? Weather has gotten much better and was in the 60s the last round I played. Unfortunately, it was a stinker of a round. The back half of that round was looking up and was hitting bogies and scaring par a few times. However, had to cut it short and didn't play the last three holes. Net double bogey is bad for best ball. I did three rounds this week just to hedge my bets. The middle round is the one I'm posting. The first round was a better overall score, but only managed a couple of net birdies, so am throwing it out. The middle round is what I present to you. My calculation gets us to net par, with only one wasted birdie between myself and @rkj427.

I feel you on this. Only broke 100 once, and it seemed so easy. Like, "I can do this every time, what's so hard about it?". Haven't gotten close in the last 14 months. However, I think I'm coming into a new game and will start hitting sub 100 soon. Can't wait to keep knocking it down.

I'm itching to get out. The weather has finally broke here and we have great weather through the weekend, getting up into the low 70's. I've got a round booked for tomorrow at the home course, and another on Thursday. I may even try to squeeze in a round Friday.

Thanks, I'll probably just avoid that one for submission over the next few weeks. Charbonneau does have an official rating, but it's short and has 0 par 5's. I'll use it for personal challenges for championship play given that I'd have to stuff 38 strokes. I'm actually skeptical of the 2 stroke difference between blue and white on this course, as it's a matter of maybe 10 yards per hole.

@GolfSpy_BEN@Golf2Much, a few questions on rounds accepted for this tournament. I have a few options available to me, however my normal Sunday round at the home course is not due to some kid activities that overlap. I'm now looking at booking rounds during the week. Luckily I get to play hooky whenever I want. Aside from the standard 18 hole round are 9 hole rounds at the same course in the week accepted as they are for standard VCT? Same with executive courses (~64 par)? Just want to know options so I can plan the week accordingly and leave flexibility to get our crushing blows delivered if something comes up.

I had a round scheduled today for the purpose of the solo scramble. Picked a more challenging course than my regular venue just to push myself and see how much better I could do with a second chance. This place is full of bunkers, and has some troublesome water on the back 9. The white tees are also longer and higher rated than the blue tees at Glendoveer East, the harder course at my home club. Got interrupted on the hole 7 green saying the youngest needed to be picked up from daycare. Boo. Finished the 9, but can't post a score with that. Scorecard to follow. I do have a regular round at my home course on Sunday that if the cards are right I'll get a full scramble round in. Not a wasted day though. I agree with @Javs, this is a great drill and has taught me a few things about my game. Even though I came in at 50 for the half, this is clearly better than my previous PR on this particular 9 of 58, and that was when the weather and ground were good in September. The ball wasn't rolling today, so was getting true carry distances. It was cold, low 40's, but sunny so I wasn't cold. No warm up, just a few practice swings before starting. Most balls off the tee were pretty good, though I didn't always take the longest ball. Some were better positioned, or I got a ball that didn't go off as expected and landed on a worse lie, though the second ball here was a help as sometimes my tee shot is fat. Still only 4W as longest from the tee, moved up to a 6-iron for my longest fairway club. Where I feel this exercise really helped me is in the short game. I got up and down a few more times than usual, and my putts dropped to an amazing 15 for the half. Usually it's 20+. I only saved myself from an extra putt with the second ball once. I attribute the improved putting to better ball positioning. I also got to work on targeting a bit more and learned a few things here. Anyway, you can read the card. I like where I ended up with my handicap calculation, not that it matters here. However, I'm pretty confident that I could hit bogey on my home course in a scramble. Like I said before, bogey for me is like par for real.

Well, it's like that down here as well, but nice if the sun comes out. As long as the wind stays under 10mph I keep pretty warm, though I'm layered up. Probably only have a few more years left before this kind of weather is too annoying to get out. Scoring is hard though as things aren't really flying yet and the ground is still soft. That's the PNW for you.

I'm psyched and ready to knock these other posers to the curb. Let's go @rkj427!! Actually, we'll likely be using a good number of your holes. As I am the 38 CH from @Golf2Much's post I haven't been that consistent. On the plus side for our team, when I get things going well I can get a high number of net birdies, which just gives us a huge advantage. Keeping last week's trend going and we'll smash all competitors. Sorry people, trouble's coming.

Ambitious for you to get a round posted within hours of the event being announced! I've got a round booked Thursday on a relatively challenging course for the purpose of this trial. Hopefully the weather holds! I'll play anyway, but more fun in the sun.

Not sure I'll be close to par, but I'm pretty sure I can get close to 90, which is kinda like shooting par for me. Let's see how many "what ifs" I can take out of my game with a second chance (or 90).

Date 03/03/2024 Course Name Glendoveer G&TC West Course Gross Score 113 Course Handicap 38 Gross Strokes over/under par 42 Net Score to Par 4 Net Score 75 Net Birdies or better 9 Longest Drive 202 SIM Round? First round of the season. 42°F and wet. Soggy from a rainy week. Only roll was if you nailed it straight to the short stop. A few notes about this round. Am trying to make a few swing changes and also play a bit more mindfully. As such, I set some limits for myself. The longest club allowed from the tee box was my 4-wood. Initially I wasn't going to even allow that, but after a decent review at the range before the round, I figured it could stay in play. The longest club allowed from the deck was the 7 iron. Everything else was allowed as needed, with a good club selection routine in place. As such, I really only put half of my bag in play, but favored the low end in selection malleability. The goal was to try and get as close to a 100yd average on tee to green shots. Second goal was to hit as close to the flag on green shots. Third was to minimize putting. I seemed to accomplish some of this, but not completely. Baby steps. I still think my strategy worked pretty well, allowing me to shed 5 putts from the last few rounds, and get at least one par. Four bogeys isn't a bad day for me, and only a couple of big blow ups on a few predictable holes. I was surprised by both #4 (that I've birdied a few times) and #15. Not really on the last one as it's usually a tough hole for me with a long climb uphill and then long approach from the top with a downslope green. However, I think it should be lower on the handicap index comparatively. All in all, this will count on my card.

Hmm, seems that there's an error in the ordering on the spreadsheet. Snickerz should be up at #28.