Q:Be.Do.

Played Harding today with JV on a wonderful San Francisco day. The day started off completely fogged in, and burned off to a nice, windless afternoon. I was looking forward to seeing how well I could let go of focusing on performance, and simply enjoy playing golf on a beautiful course.

One of the reasons I love playing with JV is that he is an avid fan of finding ways to enjoy good golf, without completely focusing on score. Today he offered to play a game of points earned on shots that felt good, regardless of their outcome. How perfectly suited to my own inner game goals! You could award your playing partner a point for a shot you thought was really good, and you could call your own points. I opted to think of them as “fun-points” – a barometer of how much enjoyment I got out of any particular shot.

The fun-points system tied perfectly well into my inner game goals, and kept me away from falling into the pitfalls of beating myself up after bad shots or holes. I quintuple-bogeyed the 2nd hole, missing the fairway and three-putting when I finally found the green. But I scored 1 fun-point for an approach shot that was spot-on.

In fact, I had four 3-putts and a 4-putt, but it was my putting that kept me in it down the stretch! Each shot was its own beautiful challenge. I even had a double-bogey 7 on the par-5 10th, with 3 fun-points: a 3-iron out of a fairway bunker that I picked clean and sent over 170 yards down the middle of the fairway, a 9-iron approach shot that stuck the green, and a 30-foot, uphill putt that wound up inches from the cup.

After a chip-in par on the 14th hole, I had a 3 fun-point bogey on 15 that left me fifteen strokes on the final three holes to break 100. All I had to do, I told myself, was average 5 strokes per hole, and I could break 100 for the first time at Harding. I proceeded to hit a wonderful approach shot on 16 that rolled off of the front of the green, leaving me a testy pitch and three puts for a double-bogey 6: +1 on pulling off the sub-100 milestone.

On 17 I put my 7-iron tee-shot squarely on the green, about 30 feet past the hole. My lag putt was well-paced, but I misread the break, and left myself a 6-foot tester for par. I acknowledged the magnitude of the putt, then dismissed the importance, pictured myself picking the ball out of the cup, and viola! Off to the final hole, with 2 strokes to give to break 100.

If you’ve never played Harding you have to understand that the final tee shot is the most daunting. It is the only hole where Lake Merced actually comes into play. Pull your drive, and suddenly you’re hitting 3 off of the tee. I thought about the lake. I thought about the fact that I hadn’t lost a ball yet on this round. And then I thought about how fun it was going to be to crush one in the fairway. I settled for a drive pushed a little right, and near the sand-traps. Excited, I topped a 5-wood, and suddenly was sitting on my third shot 150 yards to the pin.

My 6-iron approach looked like it had actually gone in the hole, and for a second I dared to dream that I’d actually birdied the last hole for my personal best anywhere, ever. It was just a trick of the shadows, and my 20-foot putt for par came up short, but my bogey putt didn’t: 98 at Harding. One stroke off of my personal best, anywhere, and my best score ever when slope and rating are factored in. It also marks three straight rounds under 100, all since I started practicing inner game techniques.

I’m stealing JV’s fun-point system for the indefinite future. It maps too well to the inner game strategies I’m trying to implement. And it is…fun.

The Day’s Stats:
Fairways hit: 5
Greens in Regulation: 4
Ups & Downs: 0
Pars: 3
Putts: 40
Handicap before round: 32.6
Handicap after round: 31.4