What a surprising weekend for sport

First, I shot a round of 84 (despite playing after 2 months as mentioned in my last post) which had an Eagle, then I saw Manchester United thump Bolton Wanderers 4-1, saw Kimi Raikkonen win from start to finish in his new Ferrari at the first race of the 2007 F1 season and then found out this morning that both India and Pakistan lost their Cricket World Cup matches to relative minnows.

First to my golf round (of course!). As I mentioned in my last post, I was really scared of how much my game would have gone bad due to lack of play for 8 weeks. Surprisingly, the only thing rotten about my game on Saturday was my putting, which has always been on the bad side.

I, along with an ex-collegue and a couple of her current collegues, went over to the Palm Springs course in Batam. I completely suprised myself by hitting the green in regulation on the very first hole, and then got over the surprise as I three putted from inside of 10 feet for bogey. Well, at least the swing was working.

After a par and bogey, I had a string of three consecutive pars and then a bogey and a double. I stood with five over par in 8 holes.

And then came the 9th on the Island course.

The 9th is an elevated tee around 300 yards from the green. It has a driving range to it's left and out of bounds on the right. If I want to reach the green, I would have to aim for the bunkers that line the left side of the fairway and fade the ball in towards the green.

And that is exactly what I did. The ball left on the line I was aiming and moved just the right amount to land directly on the green and then roll towards the flag.

A few moments later, I had putt in for Eagle! The third eagle in my golfing experience!

That put my nine hole score to 39, just one short of my lowest 9 hole score ever. On the back nine, I had a few pars, a few bogeys and a massive quadruple bogey where I pulled two tee shots out of bounds. So that was pathetic.

All in all, I shot 84 (with the eagle compensating for the quadruple...not completely, but I'll take it). I was pleasantly surprised with how much my game has stayed with me despite my neglect of it.

And so if I can shoot 84 after such a long hiatus, I can definately shoot a lot lower if I practice a lot more, mainly on my putting. So that's exactly what I am going to do from today. Practice my putting.

Now to football and ManU. We're still comfortable at the top of the Premiership table with the 6 point cushion intact over Chelsea.

Kimi Raikonnen demonstrated Ferrari's prowess and ran away with the race in Melbourne to win the first GP of the season. Only sad point in all of the race was the pre-race problem that Felipe Massa had with his Ferrari which stopped him from qualifying higher and so, with an engine replacement penalty, had to start from the back of the grid from where he managed a 6th place finish. Not a great start for him, but I'm sure he will do a lot better. The surprise package for the race was Lewis Hamilton of the McLaren team, who on his F1 debut, brought his car home in 3rd place and a very deserved podium finish. He led his team-mate Alonso for most of the race, but was overtaken after a great pit stop by Alonso's pit crew.

And then came the news of both India and Pakistan losing their respective matches to the smaller teams in the cricket world cup. As you might be aware, I am not much of a cricket buff. So obviously, I did not stay up late to watch any of the matches. But it was really surprising to note that Pakistan lost both it's first two group matches (first against hosts West Indies and later to minnows Ireland) to crash out of the world cup. Pakistan becomes the first casualty of this world cup.

The sad news was the Pakistan team coach, Bob Woolmer, died on the night of Pakistan's ouster from the world cup. Woolmer, the Pakistan coach since 2004, was found unconscious in his hotel room and was pronounced dead after three hours. As if the team did not have enough bad news to contend with.

India, meanwhile, lived up to it's reputation of making the most easiest of opposition look tough by losing to a young Bangladesh side. With this loss, India needs to win both it's matches (against Bermuda and Sri Lanka) to have any hopes of going into the next round. In case they lose to Sri Lanka, they, along with Pakistan, will be the most high profile casualties of this world cup. And that means a lot of lost revenue in cricket crazy India.

Let's see (only in the news, I am not staying up to watch them) how they do in the next matches. Personally, I think Indians should start playing other sports with as much enthusiasm as they watch cricket.

But then, that's just me.