Handicap Test

I passed my handicap test - just. ^_^ Now that I have a handicap of 24, I can play on weekends. Woohoo!

Since I have time I may as well recall my scorecard over 9 holes from Tuesday:

Hole 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Par 5 3 4 3 4 5 4 4 4 36
Score 8 6 8 4 6 7 5 5 5 54

So, yeah, my first 3 holes were an absolute disaster... +3 +3 and +4. I was pretty bummed about the par-3 2nd as well, since I had a good shot off the tee to just the left of the green, but I messed up everything after that.

That is not to say I wasn't expecting something like that... I know I suck, it's just usually I don't suck that badly on a par-3, especially after a fairly decent tee shot (by my standards anyway).

The two green committee guys were making me nervous - quite business-like and unfriendly. Fortunately I was playing with this guy who was my dad's UOB colleague from 20 years ago, so we made good conversation. It helped that we were both playing equally badly.

The 4th hole was ok. I pulled an 8-iron to the left and it landed just inside the water hazard stakes. Couldn't ground my club but still managed to hit a decent pitch up onto the fringe, and then two-putted.

The bright side is, of the four of us taking the test, I had honours from the 5th hole onwards. Surely they noticed that. :D Of course, it means everyone else was playing really badly too (although there was this 13-year old kid who actually did really well on the first 2 holes, before his drives started going left right and center).

Don't really remember much about the 5th hole except that I was thirsty.

The par-5 6th is an index-1 hole so I'm quite proud of my double-bogey there. I hit a long drive down the right side of the fairway and it ended up in the rough just behind a clump of trees. Then I blasted a brilliant 3-wood right through the narrow gap in the trees (couldn't have asked for a better time for my 3-wood to be working right). Unfortunately this landed in a bunker which took me 2 shots to get out of. Hit a 9-iron to within maybe 15 feet and two-putted.

So, I was +15 after 6 holes. I needed to do really well on the last 3 holes to have any hope of passing at all - and fortunately I did. I'm quite happy with my 3 consecutive bogeys. ^_^ They made my day. I guess I figured I had nothing to lose by that point.

The testers must have taken my score of +8 over my 6 best holes and multiplied it by 3. I am grateful for their mercy. But I'll be the first to admit that I'm nowhere near a handicap of 24, realistically. Eh heh.