2008 Citizen Amateur

[Big Johnny69]

I'm quite pleased with my round today. I shot a 76 that included a birdie on my first hole (#10) and an eagle (Woo Hoo!) on #3. My driver was working extremely well and, although I hit a few squirrelly shots, my short game bailed me out most of the time. Near the end of my round I was leaving myself with a lot of quick downhill breaking putts so I got pretty defensive.

I'm looking forward to Loch March now!

Nice round Mike.

[bbad]

Did they set up the course hard?

[jvincent]

I would say no. There were a few pins that were in tough locations and a couple that were close to the edge of the green but nothing crazy.

[mjf]

I was pretty surprised at how relatively short the course was setup. They seemed to use a lot of the Blue tees and, if the tees were on the back deck, the markers were near the front.

[Riddell]

Most pins were pretty straight forward, but the course did play fairly long. (6950?)

[Bouche]

story time!

What a round. Started on the front nine. First hole jitters put my first tee shot on the range so I hat to hit 2 off the tee to start with a double. Managed to make 3 pars after that only to get #5 where I put another ball OB (club slipped) and took an 8 (+4) Scrambled for a couple more holes then on 9 I managed to get the hooks and take another snowman 8 (+4) for a beautiful 47 with 8 penalty strokes.

Once I got on the tenth tee I said all or nothing. Went for the green in two and was short but managed to hole my sand shot for eagle then I made par and as John mentioned I holed another shot on #11 from 110 yards for another eagle. Made some pars and 3 putted 18 for a solid 33.

Hell of a round 47-33 -- for an 80

Still kicking myself for the 8 strokes I decided to waste!!!! Oh well...

Whats the low so far, anyone know?

[Kilroy]

2 Eagles???

[mjf]

Whats the low so far, anyone know?

71 is the lowest I saw. I think the scores will be posted here sometime this evening: http://www.flagstick.com/ottawa_amateur/mens_scores.htm

(presently, the page shows last year's final scores).

[Bouche]

haha yep! 2 eagles and 2 snowman. The beer tasted amazing after that round! lol

Thanks MJ

[marcf]

71 is the lowest I saw. I think the scores will be posted here sometime this evening: http://www.flagstick.com/ottawa_amateur/mens_scores.htm

(presently, the page shows last year's final scores).

2 Players tied at 67, one at 70.

[LBH]

Scores are up on flagstick
http://www.flagstick.com/ottawa_amateur/mens_scores.htm

DJ Robertson is one helluva golfer out of Greyhawk... Allen McGee is a solid golfer as well (shot a 62 at Eagle Creek this year)

[mjf]

So I shoot a 76, pretty much the best I could ever have hoped to shoot in a tournament, and I'm NINE shots back!

I guess I need to work on a few things.

[Big Johnny69]

So I shoot a 76, pretty much the best I could ever have hoped to shoot in a tournament, and I'm NINE shots back!

I guess I need to work on a few things.

Pfft, didn't you shoot a 74 in the first round last year, and were 4 or 5 back? You're doing just fine Mike. Keep at it.

[The Saint]

Congrats to all the OG'ers. I'm sure there are a lot of should've-would've-could've's.. but the experience will help next round. Play smart and have fun. When is the next round?

[jvincent]

Round #2 is Monday at Loch March.

BTW, a quick cut and paste into Excel shows the first round scoring average as 80. 79.993 to be precise for those that care about decimal points.

[Ginker]

Congrats to the OG guys..!! Nice shooting Allen!

[Thunder]

Thanks...pretty impressive Bouche...2eagles is awesome. Hopefully the weather is good Mon. as well. Course was very reasonable and the greens were perfect. Play well Mon. everyone.

[Bouche]

Thanks alot....hopefully I can remove those 2 8's from my scorecard on monday

[marcf]

Tee times for Monday are up via Flagstick.com, click on the Men's Round 1 tee times and the round 2 info for Loch March will open up.

[Riddell]

Any chance someone could post a quick course summary (like bbad`s talon) for loch march? It would be really appreciated as i have never seen the course

[jeffc]

Any chance someone could post a quick course summary (like bbad`s talon) for loch march? It would be really appreciated as i have never seen the course

I can, but it will take me awhile to put it together. It's a real nice course - a few holes that can bite you though. One of my favourites in Ottawa.

[jeffc]

Holes to watch out for are:

#1 long hole water on the right
#3 dogleg right - careful not to go too long
#4 hidden water right off the tee. left of the fairway bunker is absolute jail
#6 creek that runs through the fairway beware of
#7 scariest hole on the course - par 3 over water.
#8 sharp dogleg, don't be right - elevated green, check the pin position, its a big green, dead right left or long.
#9 very tough green 2 tiers, not a long hole so bomb it and get to a comofortable spot to hit a short approach.
#10 watch the distance to the water, don't hit too much
#11 high draw, avoid left side
#12 high cut, right is dead, long hole tough approach
#13 par 3 over water - check the wind
#14 if you can bomb it, go for it, otherwise lay up on the drive
#15 water to the right off tee, OB left, tough green to hit - 3 shot par 5 for most
#16 3 tierd geen, make sure you are on the right tier. Heavily bunkered. Long is near impossible to save par
#17 layup, creek running across that is a bit hidden, tough sloping green
#18 depending on the rough, you can cut the corner here but too far left is jail
more to follow

[jvincent]

I've played LM a lot, here's my hole by hole.

1. Tough way to start. It's very easy to casually leak one to the right and be in the water. Small green well guarded by a bunker in front and water to the right. Don't shoot at the pin if it's on the right.

2. Straightforward par-3. Make sure you clear the bunker.

3. If you are feeling brave, you can hit a FW over the corner and be very close to the green. If you miss though you are dead. Smart play is a mid-long iron to the middle of the dogleg. I think it's 220 from the tee to the far end.

4. Fairway narrows at the bunker if you hit driver here. The water on the right should be out of play unless you really miss it.

5. The new tee deck and fairway bunker have really changed this hole. The right hand bunker is carryable from the back and good poke can reach the left bunker. Not too much trouble once you get past the tee shot. Try to lay up on the left side of the fairway.

6. Straight forward tee shot. You can cut some length if you keep it left but that brings the trees on the corner into play (dead). The stream shouldn't be an issue for most. Hard to hit in two unless you are long off the tee because of the elevated green. Take an extra club because of this.

7. Fun time! Check the wind coming down 6 for this hole. Can be either 6i or 4W for me from the back depending on the wind. Long is better than short and wet.

8. Make sure you are on the left side of the fairway or you will be blocked out from seeing the green. Elevation is at least one and sometimes two clubs.

9. Aim for the right greenside bunker off the tee. There's more room there than you think. Fun green. Don't miss long if the flag is on the bottom tier.

10. Unless you know you can clear the water, lay up. It's a big carry and anything right is dead.

11. Best tee shot is just to the right of the tree on the corner. Anything that get's past that is fine.

12. Tough. If you try to play it around the corner and miss it you will be in the trees. Straight or left side is safe but plays long. Small green.

13. Again, the wind is the big factor here. It's usually a crosswind and if you get a ball moving with the wind the water to the left of the green is in play.

14. The water is in play off the tee unless you're very long. The green can be reached in two from the very edge of the water.

15. Tough tee shot with OB left and water right. The water is not really visible from the tee so be sure that if you hit one there to look for a splash or you'd need to treat it as a lost ball since there is a grove of trees in the way. Tough lay-up as it gets very narrow. Slightly elevated green is very hard to hold.

16. Keep the ball on the correct tier. I expect the flag to be on the middle or back tier. If it's middle don't miss long.

17. Layup off the tee here with a long iron or FW. Trickiest green in town. It slopes severely from left to right and back to front. Think of the crazy kitchen at the science museum. If you are not below the hole and left you will be playing a LOT of break. I love this green.

18. If you go for the upper level fairway make sure you don't miss left. Missing the green to the right is dead.

[jeffc]

good summary John, not much to add to that.

[Riddell]

thanks a lot guys, both will be very helpful on monday

[jvincent]

In a word, I suck right now. More specifically, my iron play is craptacular. Finished with a 93.

I hit 5 of 7 fairways on the back nine (my first), and of the two I missed, one was only off by 6 inches. I had 3 GIR on that nine. Almost the same on the front nine. Missed a couple more fairways, again not by much, and only hit 2 GIR. Excellent, NOT!

Let's not even talk about the par 3's where I was +8. Again, double extra craptacular ball striking there.

Once again managed to 4-putt a green. I missed a couple other short ones as but ended with 34 putts. I figured out after the 4-putt that I had ball too far back in my stance which made me pull a few badly. Considering how far away from the hole I was with most of my approaches, 34 wasn't too bad.

Not to worry, new irons are on the way!

Conditions were pretty good today except for the 20 minutes of rain. A few good scores were up but I expect the scoring will be about 2 or three strokes higher than Talon.

[jeffc]

just curious, what tees did you play from @ LM?

[jvincent]

It was a mix of Gold and Blue.

The par 3's were all Blue, which adds to my frustration since I usually play from the Gold and can't remember ever playing them in +8.

[Adska]

#2 was blue, #7 was gold, #13 was about 10 paces forward from the gold marker, and #16 was blue. #10 was blue, but I can't remember any other holes that weren't gold... Am I getting that old already??

[mjf]

Phew... I managed to hold things together for two consecutive rounds in the tournament this year. Another 76 today (37-39)! I think I hit 8 fairways and 9 greens in reg. I made most of my 4-6 foot putts and one bomb for par on #12.

The weather looked a little dodgy just before we teed off. It was raining really hard and the wind got pretty blustery but it was just raining a bit when I hit my first shot and by the end of the hole the weather was great.

I had one birdie, 5 bogies and the rest pars. Of my 5 bogies, 4 of them I had tree issues of some sort including 2 chip outs sideways. The other one was my only bunker shot of the day.

I thought the course was setup very fairly. Of course, I've been playing all of my practice rounds from the back tees so it was pretty nice to be playing 'up' tees on a few of the harder holes.

The scoring was pretty high. Sounded like the cut would be around 165-ish?? When I left, there were only three or four scores better than my 152 and there were only about 15-20 more scores to be posted. Notably, Thiha Gyi shot a 71 for a total of 144. Last I heard, Mcgee was 3-over for the day with 2 holes to play. I also heard something about another one of the guys in the final group shooting a THIRTEEN on #6 but I also heard the guy himself thought it was only a 10. Maybe some sort of ruling there...

There seemed to be a lot of grumbling around the scoreboard about the course. Seemed pretty good to me!

PS. Lorne... Can you hook me up with a practice round at Eagle Creek??