Team Golf At Apple Tree

Today's score: 86

Apple Tree Golf Course in southeast Yakima is a beautiful and challenging course. I spent nearly as much time admiring the flowers, lakes, waterfalls and surrouding landscape as I did analyzing my golf shots. It is such a unique setting, literally amongst apple trees, with cows and horses crazing in the adjacent pastures.

Here is a descriptive clip from their website:
Over the past decade, the Apple Tree Golf Course has quickly become one of the Pacific Northwest's premier golf experiences. Carved from the rolling terrain of 100 year-old orchards, Apple Tree's prestigious resume includes a 4-star rating by Golf Digest. Its signature par 3 17th features the world-famous apple island green and has been named "Best Par Three" by the Seattle Times, and "One of Washington's Top 18 Holes" by Washington CEO. And while the 17th has been featured in countless golf publications, calendars, and web sites, the rest of the championship track plays over 6,900 yards and features a variety of scenic challenges including lakes, fountains, and a beautifual cascading waterfall. So whether you come in ten over...or ten under, a spectacular round at Apple Tree is always a gimmee!

Today was our monthly Team golf event, held at Apple Tree. This was our 5th of 8 events for the season, with the next one being at the Ellensburg Golf Course and the final event coming at the Wenatchee Golf & CC on October 6th.


The ladies we played against today were from the Yakima Elks Golf Club. Pictured above from left to right: Ruth Toler (my playing partner), Pat Sugden and Barb Fortier (both from the Elks). We were all fairly close in handicap, so it was a good match. Ruth and I took slightly more than half the points, but Pat & Barb were very tough competitors. Despite the challenging terrain, I was pleased with my score of 86.

I was so enthralled with the beauty of the course, I took several pictures and am posting them here... to entice you to visit this beautiful course next time you're looking for a unique golfing experience.

Be sure to click on these images to enlarge, so you can appreciate the beauty of the landscaping.

The Results Are In

The first thing I did this morning after arriving at the golf course was to check the Leaderboard. The Puttermeisters were, indeed, in first place... but by only one single stroke. The second day of this tournament is often more difficult, so we knew we'd have to do well to hang on to the lead for the final win.

We did do well and, thankfully, my putter was hot again! Most importantly, we had a good time and ended up with the same score as yesterday, a 76... giving us a two day total of 152. This turned out to be 7 strokes better than the closest team, who shot an 82 today.

Pictured here on #10, which was our first hole of the day, from left to right: Lisa, me, Donna, Karen. Barb... are you reading this? We missed you!

I didn't stay around too long after the tournament was over. After the hot round, I had to get home and take a cold shower for an evening dinner with some friends. I know we won the first gross team prize, and also some of the side game money... skins, KP, gross honey pot, etc.

Our next event together is a "Putting For Sight" tournament at Desert Canyon, sponsored by the Greater Wenatchee Sunrise Lions Club. It will be held September 9th. Karen will not be able to play with the team because she is a member of the sponsoring club and will be running the tournament. We will find a substitute. We are the defending team winners, and I am the defending overall individual winner.

My next golf event is this coming Thursday for our monthly regional Team event, which will be held at Apple Tree in Yakima.

-Carol

The Puttermeisters (Reborn)

Consensus is that "The Puttermeisters" have been reborn after Barb Keeler, one of our original team members, moved to Buckeye, Arizona.

Today was our first event as a Puttermeister team since Barb's departure. It surely wasn't the same but our "newest" Puttermeister, Donna Regan, did a great job of filling Barb's "big shoes".

Pictured here is the new team, from left to right: Me, Lisa Schmidt, Donna Regan, and Karen Madison. We are at Applebees (after golf) having lunch to celebrate Lisa's birthday, which we missed earlier in the month.

The event today was the "Ball Buster" Scramble at our home course of Three Lakes Golf Course. Co-sponsored by Pepsi and Budweiser, this is truly a brutal two day tournament, with the tee boxes set in very bizarre places, requiring shots to go under and between trees, and pin placements on every green set on the slippery slopes. It's a very challenging tournament, but we've played in this tournament several years and have developed fairly successful strategies for dealing with the sinister set-up.

Today we shot a team score of 76 gross, 63.5 net. I played well today and my putter was particularly effective which made me feel quite useful. With the pin placements as difficult as they are, some lucky putts are definitely appreciated!

Because we wanted to get the birthday lunch celebration under way, we didn't stay around to compare scores with the other teams. We're fairly confident this could have us in first place for the time being. We'll know in the morning when we check in before the next (and final) round.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's results...

Golfing & Gawking

Today I had the pleasure of playing golf at Bear Mountain with my very good friends (from left to right): June Dorner, Donna Long, me, and Dorothy McIntire. Dorothy and Donna play out of the Wenatchee Golf & Country Club and June plays at Three Lakes like me.

Today was just for fun and none of us had ever played this course before. It is very scenic and one could easily get distrated from golfing and just gawk and the fabulous views of Lake Chelan and the surrounding area from every single hole. June, however, spends all of her spare time grubbing around in the brush looking for lost balls... and there are lots of them on this course. She found about 25 balls today. Me, I'm too scared of snakes, to go wandering off the course!

This course is built on a hillside and every single hole is up, down, or sideways... with lots of scrub brush if you're not able to stay in the fairway. It is very beautiful and I would definitely play there again.

Dorothy and her husband, Bud, moved to Palm Springs a few years ago but they come to Wenatchee during the summer to visit family and friends (and to get away from the awful heat down south). Wenatchee is hot is the summer, but Palm Springs is worse. When we're in Palm Springs durng the winter, Dorothy is very gracious and invites me to play golf with her fairly often. Dorothy & Bud belong to Cathedral Canyon Country Club, which is quite a difficult course with lots of water and sand to deal with.

As for my game today... after the first few holes I thought, perhaps, this would be the one day I would NOT report a score on this blog. The final score wasn't as bad as I expected it might have (or could have) been. The score ( 94), plus one mulligan on the first tee. Can you read that score? I don't know what happened. All of a sudden the type shrank and I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to enlarge it. Oh, now it's back to normal.

The course was, indeed beautiful, but the front nine was the most difficult, with several blind shots. Now that I've played it, should be easier next time. Theoretically speaking, of course!

Well, that's enough babble for now.

Next games: Saturday & Sunday for the Ball Buster Tournament at Three Lakes.

Mysterious Ways

I can only be consolled in knowing the Lord works in mysterious ways and he has his reasons.

Today I lost my match in the third round of the Club Championship for the 18-hole ladies division at Three Lakes Golf Course. The good news is I didn't play bad. The bad news is I still lost, even though my opponent, Ruth Toler, and I shot the very same score of 85.

I, a 15 handicap, netted 70 which is a very respectable score. Ruth who, I believe, is a 22 handicap netted a 63 which is unbelieveable.

In match play, however, score is irrelevant. It's all about who wins the most invidivual holes. I should have known how the day was going to go when an omen was sent from above on the first hole. Ruth chipped in for a birdie on the par 5 #1. Hope sprung anew when I got a chip in birdie on #4. It was a back and forth match... but Ruth moves on and I wish her luck.

As I said, the Lord does work in mysterious ways and perhaps he was saving me from myself. Had I won this match I would have had to play in the 36 hole play-off on Thursday. That, in itself is a difficult task... but I will also be playing at Bear Mountain in Chelan on Wednesday. Then, a two day tournament this coming week-end. Perhaps it is best I save myself for fun at Bear Mountain with my very good friends... and the very challenging Ball-Buster tournament at Three lakes this coming week-end.

Seriously, it's no big deal to me. My self esteem isn't tied to winning, but I do love to win! No doubt about that. But, I'd rather be a good loser than a bad winner. I once heard that you have to be used to losing to be a good loser. But, I beg to differ. It just makes winning that much sweeter when it's my turn (again).

I'm actually pleased to be playing as well as I am considering how irregularly I have been playing. Ruth is very nice and certainly deserved to win on this day. I have won the Club Championship before and now, perhaps, it is Ruth's turn. We will know on Thursday afternoon... after the final round.

The picture above is (from left to right): Ruth's Dad (Dale Wyles), Ruth's son (Travis Toler) and Ruth Toler... my cheating (oops I mean worthy) opponent. This is the group I played with today.

Second Round of Play

Well... today was the second round of match play in the Three Lakes Ladies 18-hole division of the Club Championship.

The group I played with today are (from left to right): Bev Peer, Donna Jones, and Donna Pershall. Donna Jones was my opponent today and she turned out to be a very worthy and spunky opponent. For a 24 handicap, she played better than her average and I (with a 15 handicap) played worse than usual so it made for an interesting match. We played pretty well head to head until the 5th hole when she let me win the next two holes. She came back to win hole #7, leaving me only one hole up. I took hole #8 & #9 to be three up at the turn. I gave back a hole on #10, but we halfed again on #11 with a par each.

Ultimately, I did win the match being 4 up with 2 holes to go. As it turned out, she outscored me on the next two holes... so, overall, she only lost by 2 holes. She was quite proud of herself, and I was proud of her too. Now she will move into the "net" division competition.

My final score today was a 92, which was about 5-7 strokes higher than it should have been. For some reason my slice resurfaced and I spent much of my energy trying to figure out how to deal with it. I never ceased to be amazed at how I can play so well one week (84 last week) and so poorly the next week. Despite a few (very few) excellent shots, my long game was very inconsistent today, but once I got close to the green I was able to do redeem myself in many cases.

Donna Perhall & Bev Peer had a very good match too, with Bev finally winning.

Next game: Next Thursday for Round 3. I will play the winner of the Ruth Toler / Sue Chin match.