How did you score in your last round? - 2021

35 points off 17 today. First decent round on my home course in months. The non full shots and putting killed me. I left myself 80-105m to the green on 7 occasions. 6 times to hit on and two putt for par, once for bogey. I hit zero greens out of 7. I'd guess a 17 handicapper should be averaging getting down in about 3.5 shots from that distance, so 24.5 shots. I took 31. I didn't get down in 3 from that distance once. Of my 18 dropped shots today I'd attribute 8 to catching those shots fat (and one thin). I also had 5 three putts. None of them from positions you'd think a three putt is likely.

My other 5 dropped shots were from deciding to play the index 1 as a par 5 (my only 0 pointer), and 4 decent iron shots that just didn't find the green and I didn't get up and down.

But to go from a series of mid 20 point rounds, I'm actually heartened from what should be an infuriating round. I'm stilll not convinced my putting is that bad, I just need to practice distance control. And even those cut down shots in trying to shift my weight on more to keep them down. I think I'll get them.

I had a week off last week and got to play twice - Monday in Tramore and Tuesday in Gold Coast. I played very badly both days but didn't score all that badly - 34 points the first day and 31 the second. Putting was awful - distance control for longer putts the problem as always. 9 three putts over both days. The chances for up and downs aren't the problem, my chipping is decent and I'll usually get a couple and run most of them close. But even from 15 feet there's a chance I'll leave myself a 5 footer for the next.

My driving wasn't great either which was disappointing. I had been nailing that club, but the dreaded slice came back to me this week. I still hit good ones, but I lost 3 from the tee in Tramore and 1 in gold coast. But by far my biggest problem was catching those 3 quarter shots fat. They've always been what drags me down more than anything else, but the rest of the game I can see coming together (even when I have 9 three putts in two days), but those shot are just dreadful and I give myself so many of them in a round. I've actually never had as many as I had in gold coast on Tuesday. It was an open comp and they set it up for the older golfers. Which is great - just €15 entry, I'd say there are a lot of guys playing it every week. But the tees were ridiculously forward. For the two par 5s on the front 9 I went behind trees from the tee, so had to play a 9 iron and a gap wedge to get over them. For two of the par 3s I hit a 9 and an 8 iron from the tee. Those two 9 irons and that 8 iron were the only times on the front 9 I hit longer than a gap wedge. And it was the same story on the back - I hit a 6 iron on the par 3 and then for the last 3 holes I hit 6 iron, pitching wedge and 3 wood into the greens for my approach shots (2 par 5s). Again, they were the only times I hit longer than a gap wedge. To be honest, I probably wouldn't play that again because it was a bit frustrating.

20pts front 9 and feeling good then the heavens opened and I limped home with 31pts. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well done - always nice to hit a milestone. And I wouldn't worry about the last two holes too much. It shows there's easy opportunity for improvement.

However well someone scores, they always could have shot lower. You got under a hundred - I'd say when you think back on the round you could get that down to 90 fairly easily. The guy who finally goes around level par - it could easily have been under par. Even the guy who goes around in 60 shots on tour I guarantee you looks at a few holes where they could have made it a 59.

A three footer is one you should always be hoping to make. But I wonder what the rate of success is for amateurs through the various handicaps.

And while we always look back at where our round could have been better, we don't give anything like that scrutiny to where it could have been worse! If you were making three footers all day - that's probably something you can't rely on every time. Or the far more obvious strokes of luck like hitting a tree and still having a clear shot to the green, stopping just before water, hitting the flag on a chip that was running off the green, etc.

Had 31 points on Sunday with 4 dings.

Found it really difficult to keep double/triples off the card in the last couple of months.

For the 14 holes i finished on Sunday i was -3 to my handicap but 3/4 dings kill a round.

38 points in New Forest on Saturday. I played okay, hit some good shots. My distance control on putts had been atrocious, but I only had 2 of those putts on Saturday (both resulting in 3 putts). I had two scratches, including the last which was annoying. Both mainly the result of taking a club too much and landing on the downslope after the green. I came up short on a couple of holes too, but the worst consequence of that was a chance of an up and down. While the hazards tend to be in front of the green, the worst punishment can often be on the back. A bunker will hopefully just be one dropped shot. If you land on a downslope you can run miles off the green. In my case yesterday into meadow grass and onto a path behind a hedge. I couldn't find anything about the path on the card so I took an unplayable. It may have been OB. It wasn't a comp anyway.

We played from the yellow tees which I found annoying! In fairness, on the last hole I hit a 6 iron from the tee and one of the others hit as good a driver as he had hit all day and we were about a yard apart. So they were certainly the right tees for him. I'd have enjoyed a bit more distance.

I had played the course a fair few times a few years ago and I was surprised that I'd forgotten most of the lines from the tee. It caught me out a couple of times, but the course is so open you can go a long way wrong before you're in serious trouble. But I do love the course with the exception of the index 1 12th hole. There's no good way to play it for par that I can see. To carry the stream you need a very big drive to a very small landing area. You can't really go over that tree on the fairway if you want to make the green. You're either too close to it to get over it or too far back to make the green. You can go right of the tree, but again you're looking at a very small area to leave the ball to have a clear line to the green. And to play it as a par 5 it's a bit of a boring hole. I went with the hit it at the tree and punch it low up the fairway. It worked out, I ended up pin high for birdie (I didn't make it). I had my first par for 4 points in roughly 19 years.

And that round has knocked my only good round out of my last 20 scores, so I'm up to 18.3 now. I didn't like the handicap going up so much so I played a few away courses recently. 4 of those 6 away rounds are counting towards my handicap and 4 of 14 from Corballis are. I find it funny that I am now regarding rounds with a couple of scratches, a couple of bad three putts as decent rounds. A part of me thinks these should be frustrating rounds, but instead I'm relieved to be coming in with a respectable score.

Similar to yourself in my last round, at the weekend.

I had 3 birdies in the round, but 6 doubles, mostly from small silly mistakes

For matchplay, who goes first on each hole?

Also, for handicap purposes, if one player is off 12 and the other off 14, are the 2 shots applied to Index 1 and Index 2 or are they on Index 13 and 14?

Just on your last paragraph here, I find that a real plus of the WHS system adjusted gross score as it means my round isn't completely destroyed by a bad hole. I played a comp a few weeks ago where I took a 9 (don't ask 😂 ) on our first hole which would have basically ended my round before it began but because of the adjusted gross I just said to myself to forget about that hole and try break 85 the rest of the way in. Played relatively ok the rest of the way and my adjusted gross ended up at 86 and a score differential of 13.6. One of my last counting scores was falling off so if I had have given up or played badly the rest of the round I likely would have went up a bit but instead I just went up .1 because of it so managed to keep myself around where I want to be. Probably my last qualifying score this year and leaves me needing to cut about 2.5 off my handicap to reach my aim of single figures next year. Looking forward to the challenge already.

Think in our place it is whoever is on top of the drawer gets the Honour

I'm a beginner, so my rounds are nowhere near as impressive as everyone else in here. But I went out and played Elmgreen for the first time today. It was my 4th ever full round of golf having previously only played Dunboyne R&R. I immediately noticed the difference in quality between the 2 courses. Like night and day.

I made par on the first hole which set me off to a good start. Throughout the rest of the round I had a couple more pars but the best part of the day for me was making my first ever legit birdie. I chipped in from about 10 yards off the green. I felt like I'd just won the masters!

A few holes later, on a par 4, I was putting for birdie again and left it hanging on the lip. I still don't know how it didn't drop. But to be that close again was very encouraging.

I did have a couple of blow-up holes where I had a complete meltdown. Shot a 10 on one hole and had a few 8's and a 9. I need to learn to hold it together and not completely implode when things go wrong. I find where I slip up for some reason is usually my 2nd shot. I'll almost always duff it a few feet in front of me but then follow that up with a decent 3rd shot. If I can tidy that up a bit I reckon I'll shave a good few strokes off my score.

All in all, I still haven't broken 100 yet so as I said it's nowhere near impressive. But for me, I feel like it's the best I've played so far. Dying to get back out again asap!