It seems like almost every golf course I play on a regular basis has at least one nemesis hole where I never score well. At this point, screw ups on these holes are almost all mental (although some holes are just plain hard). I imagine the pros have a similar feeling about the seventeenth at TPC Sawgrass – you know it’s coming, you know all the details of the hole, yet it still has the all-too-frequent ability to mushroom into a dreaded “other.”

Today’s lovely round at Willingers Golf Club in Northfield had two current nemesis holes for me: the par three seventh (which I don’t think I’ve hit in years) and the par four sixteenth (pictured above). I doubled both today in different fashions:

• Hit the left bank of the seventh green and ricocheted directly into the marsh. Dropped, chipped on and missed the putt.
• Pulled my drive on sixteen into the trees on the left off the tee, dropped and punched out to about 115 yards. Hit a perfect pitching wedge that landed just short of the hole, bounced up, hit the flag stick and rolled long. Missed the putt.

Golf for me really isn’t about scoring these days – I play primarily for the social interaction, being outside on a beautiful day and getting in a good walk. There is still the opportunity for a decent score each time I tee it up, though, so it would be nice if these nemesis holes would give up a par every once in a while…