I played my first “official” alternate round of golf on Friday, February 26, 2021. I use the quotation marks because although I played 18 holes, a portion of the course was closed because there was still snow on the ground. I ended up playing the first six holes, followed by two loops of the last six holes of the course. I alternated between playing each hole righty and lefty, and when I played the second loop of the last six holes, I switched sides so that I played each of the last six holes both righty and lefty.
It was a really fun round of golf. First, I had the course almost entirely to myself. Our local muni unfortunately doesn’t get much play to begin with, but when there is still snow on the ground and it hasn’t quite cracked 40 degrees, even fewer people come out to the course. There were a couple of holes where the tee boxes were still covered in snow, so I had to tee off a bit off to the side. Still, perhaps because the course is so hilly, it drains pretty well – it wasn’t nearly as soggy as I was expecting.
In terms of equipment selection, this was a good round to start experimenting. There are a few things that I’m trying to balance. I am committed to walking, as walking is one of the best forms of exercise that I can do for my back. Also, sitting in general is uncomfortable for my back. Add in the bumping and jostling that come along with riding in a cart and it’s even worse. Walking also helps keep my core muscles warmed up, which is especially important for me now. Our muni is extremely hilly, to the point that using a pushcart is pretty difficult, so for now at least I’m carrying the bag. I’m hoping to rig up a hip belt to shift some of the weight onto my hips, but until then, I plan to carry fewer clubs to keep the weight down a bit.
For this round, I carried 11 clubs. I’m using an old Bullseye style putter that I can use from both sides. For the lefty clubs I carried PW, 8i, 6i and 4i. The course actually doesn’t have any bunkers, but it does have a lot of very steep approaches to the greens. For the right handed clubs I carried SW, PW, 8i, 6i, 4H and driver. As my lefty skills improve, I will likely add in the SW, a 4H, and a driver. That might be a while though. This course doesn’t have any bunkers, and I’m better off playing bump-and-runs with the PW or 8i than hitting higher lofted shots with the SW. Until I get the weight issue sorted out, I’ll probably stick with 11 clubs. There were a few times I had to manufacture right handed shots, but I really enjoy doing that anyway.
It was really interesting to see how my mindset changed from hole to hole as I switched between righty and lefty. My standards were completely different from hole to hole. On the righty holes I was expecting to hit a solid tee shot and to either make a par or bogey. On the lefty holes, I was hoping to just continually advance the ball toward the hole. For the most part, I was able to do that.
There were a few adventures – I made three triples on lefty holes. One of these holes was a dogleg to the right. I hooked my 4 iron tee shot so badly that my best play was to pitch out to the right, which put me 30 yards or so in front of the tees for the following hole. I then tried to play over the tee box, but chunked it into the snow covering the tee box. I gave myself a drop, pitched just short of the green, then pitched on and two putted. The other triples were mostly caused by just not being able to hit the ball solidly enough to get to the green in fewer strokes.
For the nine holes that I played right handed, I was four over par. This is about what I would expect to shoot on this course. For the nine left handed holes, I was 19 over par. This is also about what I would expect to shoot.
This course normally plays as a par 71, but because of the specific combination of holes that I played, par was actually 74. My total score was a 97. I wanted to come up with an estimate of what an adjusted score would be for the round, so I built a spreadsheet to run the numbers. Converting the par 74 score down to a par 71 was pretty easy. The basic formula was (74/97)=(71/x). This means that had I played the regular holes with the same skill level, I would likely have shot about a 93. Running this through the standard USGA formula of (score-rating)*113/slope results in a differential of about 26.3.
I also tried extrapolating estimated expanded scores for righty and lefty rounds – i.e. what might I have shot if I had played with the same skill level just playing righty or lefty. I used variations of the same formulas, and came up with a 78.7 righty, and 107.5 lefty. This is about what I would expect. I played the course lefty two times near the end of October, and shot 104 and 109. While it’s certainly the case that you can’t just double a nine hole score, this tells me that at least for this particular round, the calculations seem to be pretty accurate. Running the separate righty / lefty estimated scores through the USGA formula results in differentials of about 12.2 righty and 40.1 lefty.
I haven’t yet registered for my official handicap. I wouldn’t have been able to post this score anyway, since I didn’t play the entire course. Still, this was a good opportunity to experience playing alternate righty / lefty by hole, and makes me feel better about continuing to play this way. I was also happy with my club selection for the round. I also was glad that I had a chance to play around with the spreadsheet to test out calculating some handicap differentials. I will definitely be able to keep track of unofficial righty and lefty handicaps this way. Hopefully the weather (and work and family) will come together soon so that I’ll be able to get out there and post my first official score.
Alternate Golf 