My Year In Golf
Once again, it was a very good year
How do you measure a year of playing golf when you aren’t a professional and just like to slap it around? For me, there’s only a few metrics:
Did I get to play a lot?
Did I get to play a bunch of new courses?
How did I score (e.g., my handicap)?
As a golf sicko, I set some specific goals, which we’ll get to also - but that’s the long and short of it.
On point one, I will finish 2022 playing over 60 rounds of golf. Not all of those are recorded in GHIN, some I purposefully didn’t report since I hit a few extra balls on a given hole, or they were nine hole courses that weren’t in GHIN, etc. But by any measure, that’s a lot - more than once per week. This has been helped tremendously by a few golf vacations, which I’ll get to in the next point, but yeah - I played a lot of golf.
And part of that was playing new courses - whether it was on a family trip to Hawaii, or golf trips with friends, I racked up some new courses! Here are the courses I played for the first time in 2022:
Ko Olina Golf Club, Oahu, HI
Royal Hawaiian Golf Club, Oahu, HI
Pumpkin Ridge (Witch Hollow), Portland, OR
Gearhart Golf Links, Gearhart, OR
Astoria Country Club, Astoria, OR
Highlands Golf Club (9 holes), Seaside, OR
Grizzly Ranch, Portola, CA
San Ramon Golf, San Ramon, CA
Stanford Golf Club, Palo Alto, CA
The Hay (9 holes), Carmel, CA
Wild Rock Golf Club, Wisconsin Dells, WI
Sand Valley, Nekoosa, WI
Mammoth Dunes, Nekoosa, WI
The Sandbox, Nekoosa, WI
Erin Hills, Erin, WI
Lawsonia Links, Green Lake, WI
Blackwolf Run (Meadows Valley), Kohler, WI
Whistling Straits (Straits), Kohler, WI
Blackwolf Run (River), Kohler, WI
The Baths, Kohler WI
Whistling Straits (Irish), Kohler, WI
Olympic Club (Ocean), San Francisco, CA
Green Hills Country Club, Millbrae, CA
That’s 23 new courses - four of them (Highlands, The Hay, The Sandbox and The Baths) aren’t traditional 18 hole courses, so do with that what you will. ANY way you slice it, this is gross and I’ll own up to that.
I regret nothing.
Best New Course I Played This Year: This is a tie between Whistling Straits (Straits) and Erin Hills. I wrote about why earlier in those links, but both are massive tests but also I had so much damn fun.
It’s worth pointing out that I think between Erin Hills, Whistling Straits (Straits) and Green Hills CC, that these were three of the hardest courses I’ve ever played. I think this is an evolution in my game - I used to be very leery about playing a course known for being super tough. It’s not so much that I think I’m a good enough golfer to do WELL at these courses, but more that I have learned that it’s possible to have a fun time on a course that truly tests you.
From a “test” perspective, there’s a fine line between a course that asks tough questions and a course that is just (seemingly) impossible. On Green Hills, for instance, there were certain spots where you were absolutely cooked - chipping or putting to a hole that was downhill from you was a death sentence. In most cases, simply keeping the ball on the putting surface was a huge win. The lesson? Don’t be there in the first place. There were “good” places to miss and if the conditions had been better (it had rained for days and a lot of chipping areas were really inconsistent turf, a common issue for older courses without great drainage), I probably would have scored better, but I had a great time getting my teeth kicked in.
Most Fun New Course I Played This Year: Lots of contenders here! I could play Gearhart three times a week and never get bored. I absolutely adored both Sand Valley and Erin Hills, and thought both Stanford and Olympic (Ocean) were tremendously fun. The halfpipes at Astoria Country Club were so surreal, I feel like I have to get back there and try it again … but the answer is Royal Hawaiian Golf Club. I can’t remember a course where my jaw kept dropping from crazy views but at the same time the course was fun and just unlike anything else I’ve ever played. It truly feels like Jurassic Park was filmed there, and while I lost plenty of golf balls, it’s not hard in the typical Pete Dye kick-you-in-the-nuts kind of way.
So, how did I play in 2022? I think by most metrics, the answer would be, “Not bad.”
My handicap ranged from 12.9 to 14.4 - the 12.9 is a historic low for me, so that checked off one goal. (And yes, there’s still technically time to lower it.) I’m currently sitting at a 13.2. (Update: After a few bad rounds, that’s now 13.5. Sigh.) I think that consistency is a GOOD thing, but it also speaks to the fact that I probably am not nearly aggressive enough in trying to score. I think - I could be wrong - that if I’m being more aggressive, I should see both a lower low and a higher high in a yearly range.
Based on averages, for my handicap I make fewer birdies than most players, but also fewer double bogeys. Which is better? I don’t know…but I know making birdies is fun. I’d like to make more of them. The reality is that I started 2022 as a 13.4 and am basically ending the year at the same index. Improvement should be a priority next year, but more importantly I have to figure out WHAT to work on. (I already have some clear ideas on this.)
Is that good? Well, that handicap is better than average - the average male handicap is 14.1 per golf.com - but it’s important (very important! he said) to stress that this is only for people who actually record their scores and submit them to the databases that USGA reads. So in terms of scores for guys you might run into on the course, the average golfer is probably a lot closer to a 19 or 20 than a 14.
But one of the reasons I play golf is to improve, and that didn’t really happen in 2022. (Note: I always need to remind myself that in 2018, I was like a 21, 22 handicap. So there IS progress happening here!)
I will be setting golf goals for 2023, but as the big events in the year are two trips - one to Bandon Dunes, the other the insanity of The Full Irish, my biggest goal is to focus on the small stuff, try to improve and then of course to experience and enjoy some of the greatest golf courses in the world. On this last part, I can say with assurance I can commit to that goal.