golf

Neil and I went for 18 holes on Saturday at Vic Park. Neil is improving noticably. He's only played 2 rounds of 18 where he actually counts strokes (twice we played ambrose), but over those 2 he's gone from +56 to +36, and is noticably more controlled swinging the club. I had an up-and-down day, or more specifically a down-and-up day, shooting +17 for the front 9, and +7 for the back.

The course itself was typical for Victoria Park, only more so. The greens were being "scarified and recored" (whatever that means), so were a bit rough, and the 4th hole is always a bit gravelly, but I really do like the Vic Park layout. Its by no means a high-level course, but the holes, although very short, are often interesting, and there is a lot of up-and-down variation, which they use well. The shortness, though, is frustrating, because I know that pars on par 4s are devalued when they're only 240m. It got slightly worse when they put the inner-city bypass went in (shortening the 5th), and when they put the inner northern busway changing the 15th and 17th). Yesterday was worse again, with the 1st and 12th changed from par 4s to short par 3s (moved tees), and the 9th from a par 5 to a par 4 (crappy temp green). Par 62 is a funny type of golf.