We're in the Navy

Monday 5th

Today was the first official round for the Collier competition, although since I am no longer a member I am not part of it. In fact there are 3 tourists who are not members as well as some others from Le Katai who are playing with the group as well. Only Dane of our foursome was actually competing.

We played at the Royal Navy course at Plutaluang about 40 minutes south of Pattaya. Last year we played the East and West courses and this time we started on the South. Once again my short game let me done with some lovely drives turned into bad scores, although I did start to get more confident on the putting. I had a run of 2 pars on the  from 9 for 11 points. I guess the most "interesting" hole was the 9th. I was sharing a cart with Gerald, another Canadian and after birdie-ing the 7th he'd had a bad score on the 8th. My drive was within 100yards of the hole but Gerald's drive hadn't even rolled all the way down the slope in front of the tee, then he had a miss and was still well behind my drive after his 3rd. When he asked his caddie how far it was to the creek in front of the green I replied " about 3 shots the way you hit them". He then had another miss before passing my drive with his 5th shot.

However, I stuffed my 2nd into the water, dropped out, hit the bank with the next shot and dropped back in before chipping onto the green and 3 putting for a 9, the same as Gerald. The other two had likewise hit into the creek and had 7 or 8.

Then things got a bit unsettling. The caddies first directed us to the East course but we wanted to play the North, since we hadn't played it before and it has the signature lighthouse hole. We were so far ahead of the next group that Gerald rightly suggested we'd better send a caddie back to tell them where we were going so that we all played the same holes. Dane and Jason meanwhile had already hit off and weren't happy to have to wait. Things settled down after a bit and we did play the Lighthouse. I overshot and had to drop and play a second ball, Gerald and Dane (in red) gave up after a couple in the water but Jason (in Yellow) manage to hit the island an putt in from off the green for a birdie.

In the end my back 9 wasn't too bad with 16 points - 2 over my handicap. My 18 hole score was still dismal - 27 points, 9 over my handicap.

I had no problems with me knee today but my elbow was very sore at the end and for the last few holes, every shot was painful.