I thought it was a bad round

We were at the Palm Springs course in Batam yesterday, me and a buddy of mine. I was playing Palm after a long time and so it was good to be back.

I thought the round started quite good. Bogey, par, bogey, par, par. Then I hit a great tee shot which took a bad bounce and landed out of bounds. So I took a 2 stroke penalty and made double bogey. Another stroke penalty on the very next hole and another double bogey. And this is not even the worst.

On the 9th hole, which is a reachable par 4, I drove a beautiful driver onto the green. Get this! I was on the green in one. All I had to do was putt the ball close to the hole and tap in for birdie. Guess what I did.

I four putted the green!

I was so furious with myself. I almost yell out loud. And I walked to the next tee in a fury. And drove a cracker of a drive over water and saw the ball land safely on the edge of the fairway. But when I grove down to that point, I could not see my ball at all. I think the group ahead of me, full of hackers, had not bothered to see if they were playing my ball, which I think they did.

So I took a stroke penalty and then hit a beautiful approach to the green and putted to make par despite the penalty. But the par did not help make my mood any better. In fact, I was even more furious at having such dasterdly luck.

The next hole was a par again. And this one was a chip to within an inch of cup. As the rest of the round came through, my mood was pretty bad and I was thinking about how bad my game was going.

Finally when we finished and returned to the club house, I noticed that I had played a round of 86!

That is a 14 over par round for me. Despite thinking that this was a pathetic round! Despite hitting really bad golf shots for half the round, despite four-putting a makeable birdie opportunity, I had shot 86.

After a really bad round, I was only 3 strokes off my best ever score.

That, I thought, was amazing. And it helped that I was not keeping track of my score and was playing one stroke at a time.

There is still hope!