Frosty but Fun

The winter League certainly lived up to its name at the weekend. Conditions were......let's say just about playable. Although the temperature was down at 3°c/37°f the air was still and with the morning sun out it was quite nice. The course looked great......if only as a golf Christmas card (see pics) and as it was the first real frost, it hadn't fully frozen the ground solid though there was no high wedges to be played into the greens ha ha.
     I normally don't care much for golfing in such conditions but in a strange way I was looking forward to the challenge. We were a 2 ball, which was a good thing as it's harder finding 4 white balls in the frosty rough and also It was good to have a catch up with my old school mate Mark. The round started well even though I pushed my tee shot right into a small coppice ( swinging too hard Dexter :) ) I managed to save par. The 2nd, par 3, I over clubbed this was the first blob on the card (stableford). The next 2 holes were bogeys, the par 5 I hit a frozen fairway bunker (see pic) that was different.... and the next hole, after a fairway hit, my approach to the green hit, bounced and ice skated off again ha ha. The front 9 ended with a few errant drives resulting in tough second shots which had to be hit into the mouth of the green to stand any chance of holding them and another blob due to a lost ball just off the fairway ( one of those mystery disappearing golf balls ). A nice par on 9, which in normal conditions my approach would've been a tap in birdie, and I was still enjoying the challenge and had played some really nice long irons.
     The back 9 started really well,although my tee shots weren't particularly accurate, I managed to make 3 pars on some pretty difficult holes. By now the sun was at it's winter highest and the exposed parts of the fairways were thawing slightly but unfortunately the greens and bunkers were just as unforgiving as the front 9's. Strangely, I was still really enjoying the round and all it's challenges, the course and surrounding landscape was looking really picturesque and the overall temperature had risen slightly and I was able to remove one of my many restricting top layers. I managed to find more fairways and hold more greens in regulation this improved my stableford score and gave me a card worthy of competition entry. Just as on the front 9, I finished with a really nice par which capped off a thoroughly enjoyable mornings golf. I handed in a stableford score of 28 points( scorecard/round performance ), which considering the conditions, I was reasonably happy with as I knew the rest of the field, over the next few days, would have to play to a similar standard.
     This round, as the title says was pretty much just for fun and It didn't disappoint. I hit alot of good shots and made some ridiculous putts so all in all very enjoyable..............but can't wait for the good weather.