Palmer at Woodlands

Sun 13th

Daylight saving started today so I had an extra hour to lie in. it was after 10 before I was up and about and I headed to the super market for a bit of shopping, including some soup for lunch and a combo to reheat for dinner.

My friend Tony arranged for the 2 of us and his wife Lisa to play at the Palmer, one of the 3 courses that are part of the Woodlands country club. I had played this course 2 years ago but it has 3 sets of 9 holes and one of them was new to me.

We hit off  a bit before 2 so it was a similar time (by the sun) as Friday and like Friday it was starting to get dark when we finished a bit before 6-30.
However we had a very good run. We didn't wait all day and apart from a single we let play through we were hardly pushed from behind either and not at all on the second 9.

Neither if the others had played a full 18 for some time and both were walking. However they both finished although Lisa didn't play all the holes.

The golf course is different again from the others I've played on this trip. Here the course are created by the developers, more to sell golf course frontage blocks than for the golfers per se.

Hence virtually every hole has houses on both sides and the course winds itself through the suburbs in a loop.

We are just coming out of winter here and the fairways are starting to green up the the close rough is still a bit brown. The ground under the trees is mostly bare so you are not overpunished if you stray a bit.

I played fairly ordinary golf on the first 9 - the Deacon although I did par the first. This is in fact the 5 round in a row that I have done that. That was however the only par for the 9 and I wiped 3 holes with lost balls, out of bounds or once just a bad score.

My shot of the day was on the 7th of the front 9. After a good drive my chip was short and rolled into the water hazard. The ball was about half above the water and there was a dry place to stand so I decided to play it. I put on my waterproofs and played it like a bunker bunker shot. The ball shot up in the air and finished about 12 ft from the hole. I would have got covered in muddy water if I hadn't put on the water proofs. It would have been a better ending if I'd dropped the putt for the par, but in fact I 3 putted.

The second 9 on the King was much better with a 40, pretty much on my handicap. I had 5 pars and finished with my only birdie.

Back to work tomorrow.