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The weather cleared up enough for me and Dan to play on Sunday. We agreed to meet at the Lancaster Golf Center and play 9 holes. I’m glad Dan agreed to play there as it was a bit of a drive for him while it is less than a 10 minute drive for me. I left my house around 10:30, planning to go to the ATM on the way. No line at the ATM, then on to route 2 to get to Lancaster, only to find that route 2 has been transformed into a 2-lane parking lot. For some reason the traffic was barley moving. After about 10 minutes of driving at a pace where I can walk faster I began to worry, great - I live only a few minutes out and I’m going to be late. A few minutes before 11 the traffic started to move – turns out there was some construction around exit 32 that closed one of the lanes and many drivers seemed to have a rubber neck. When I was about a mile out of the exit I needed Dan called my cell phone, saying that he was waiting for me. I looked at my watch and saw that the time was 10:57 so I was not late yet, I told him I would be there in about 2 minutes.

After introducing ourselves we went on to play. It turns out that Dan had come there a little early and had used their driving range to pass the time. We went on to the first hole and got the feeling that we were the only ones playing. The first hole is a par 3, 65 yard hole. Lat time I played my initial tee drove the ball into the woods about 20 yards beyond the green. I chose my pitching iron and teed off. It was a great shot, at least for me, landing some 5 yards to the 10 0’clock of the green. Then it was Dan’s turn and he hit about the same distance from the green only to the 7 o’clock of the green. My nest shot put me on the green. Unfortunately, I missed my first put missing the par, but managed to sink the ball on my second put. This gave me my first (legal) bogey.

The reason I say legal bogey, was that the last time I played was with my wife a few weeks ago. During that game I would tee off 2-3 balls at a time so it was not quite the same as getting a bogey with your first tee off.

We went on playing and on the third hold there is a small creek some 2 yards wide between the tee and the green. I had to assure Dan that the creek was supposed to be there. I managed to screw up that tee pretty good, so I’ll save you all the details about how bad I played that hole.

At the 6th hole I got my second bogey. I must be getting better ;o). On to the 7th hole, a relatively long 170 yard hole. There we notice a new “lake” filling up the fairway from around 15 yards out to 100 yards out. That was not supposed to be there and I told Dan as much. We did have quite a bit of rain during the past week, so we couldn’t complain too much. At least we were finally playing.

We finished all 9 holes in about an hour. So even with my lack of skill, we did pretty good. Obviously, getting not only my first, but also my second bogey made me happy. My golf game is slowly improving.

A big disadvantage for me in this area is that there are about 5 months per year that it is next to impossible to play a full game of golf. For practicing my driving (the weakest part of my game) the Lancaster Golf Center has a heated driving range for the winter – so you can practice your drive, although you may not be able to see exactly where the golf ball lands in the snow. For practicing my putting, I found an electronic practice cup that returns the balls so I can practice my put indoors during the winter. I found it on eBay and should be receiving it in a few days.

The weather cleared up enough for me and Dan to play on Sunday. We agreed to meet at the Lancaster Golf Center and play 9 holes. I’m glad Dan agreed to play there as it was a bit of a drive for him while it is less than a 10 minute drive for me. I left my house around 10:30, planning to go to the ATM on the way. No line at the ATM, then on to route 2 to get to Lancaster, only to find that route 2 has been transformed into a 2-lane parking lot. For some reason the traffic was barley moving. After about 10 minutes of driving at a pace where I can walk faster I began to worry, great - I live only a few minutes out and I’m going to be late. A few minutes before 11 the traffic started to move – turns out there was some construction around exit 32 that closed one of the lanes and many drivers seemed to have a rubber neck. When I was about a mile out of the exit I needed Dan called my cell phone, saying that he was waiting for me. I looked at my watch and saw that the time was 10:57 so I was not late yet, I told him I would be there in about 2 minutes.

After introducing ourselves we went on to play. It turns out that Dan had come there a little early and had used their driving range to pass the time. We went on to the first hole and got the feeling that we were the only ones playing. The first hole is a par 3, 65 yard hole. Lat time I played my initial tee drove the ball into the woods about 20 yards beyond the green. I chose my pitching iron and teed off. It was a great shot, at least for me, landing some 5 yards to the 10 0’clock of the green. Then it was Dan’s turn and he hit about the same distance from the green only to the 7 o’clock of the green. My nest shot put me on the green. Unfortunately, I missed my first put missing the par, but managed to sink the ball on my second put. This gave me my first (legal) bogey.

The reason I say legal bogey, was that the last time I played was with my wife a few weeks ago. During that game I would tee off 2-3 balls at a time so it was not quite the same as getting a bogey with your first tee off.

We went on playing and on the third hold there is a small creek some 2 yards wide between the tee and the green. I had to assure Dan that the creek was supposed to be there. I managed to screw up that tee pretty good, so I’ll save you all the details about how bad I played that hole.

At the 6th hole I got my second bogey. I must be getting better ;o). On to the 7th hole, a relatively long 170 yard hole. There we notice a new “lake” filling up the fairway from around 15 yards out to 100 yards out. That was not supposed to be there and I told Dan as much. We did have quite a bit of rain during the past week, so we couldn’t complain too much. At least we were finally playing.

We finished all 9 holes in about an hour. So even with my lack of skill, we did pretty good. Obviously, getting not only my first, but also my second bogey made me happy. My golf game is slowly improving.

A big disadvantage for me in this area is that there are about 5 months per year that it is next to impossible to play a full game of golf. For practicing my driving (the weakest part of my game) the Lancaster Golf Center has a heated driving range for the winter – so you can practice your drive, although you may not be able to see exactly where the golf ball lands in the snow. For practicing my putting, I found an electronic practice cup that returns the balls so I can practice my put indoors during the winter. I found it on eBay and should be receiving it in a few days.