The golf course turned out much better than the day before. The night before after much drinking to complement a satisfying dinner, suddenly a bet came on, pitting me for a match play against one of the elderly gentleman.
The stakes were high with the odds favoring me; dollar notes were slapped on the table loudly and the bets were on me to win outright! This level of confidence stems from the fact that I played extremely well on the first day against KGS.
The poor uncle; he felt betrayed by his buddies. What’s in it for me? I will pocket half the one thousand dollars pool money and the remaining half to be split among the ‘investors’.
That night I think both of us could not sleep. I know I didn’t; kept waking up every hour! Then at breakfast I learnt that neither did he! Hah!
The next day the battle was on and I had a massive headache from the restless night. But there’s no turning back. The show must go on as money has been collected already.
So to ensure that the game was exciting and fair, we each had a caddy instead of typically just one per buggy (unlike in Thailand). The sun was not too hot, I felt good and mentally strong. I started off with a bogey and a par but then blew the next two holes.
I must admit I wasn’t nervous, I was relaxed yet very focused but felt I made too many silly mistakes. I paced myself, remained focus and not be distracted by external elements.
However, by the end of the first nine, I was two down. The uncle felt good but I sensed he was mentally weak because he kept lamenting about his mistakes. While I made mistakes too, I did not harp on them.
The sun finally came out and it took the toll on both of us. Being two down and three to go, I fought back hard. And won the two holes to level up with one to go. With the Par 5 being the last and deciding hole, I was very cautious as my earlier Par 5s did not yield good results.
Both of us played the same strategy: laying up to cross the creek and landing our balls next to the bunker on the right of the green. Both chipped onto the green and one of us just had to hole out to have the outright win.
Luckily my ball was closer to the hole than uncle’s. His attempt rolled passed the cup and caught the downward slope and rolled away. I had my chance then! Seeing the line and drop, my attempt unfortunately duplicated the same of his. Eeesh. All he had to do now was to put it in and force me to make an error under the pressure.
But he missed! Ooh… My heart was palpitating. Now I had to put it in and claim victory.
My caddy lined up my ball and told me to go right of the cup by just a ball’s width. I took my time, addressed the ball and putted… and watched my ball rolled pass the hole by two ball’s width.
We had squared the stiff competition!
Such fun and thrill it was. Somehow both of us were happy and relieved that there were no losers from this.
So I leave Kuching with very good memories of this group golf outing. I made more new friends, bonded better with the existing friends and saw further improvements in my golfing ability.
I look forward to my next golf escapade and now head back home with happy memories.
Goodbye Kuching, thanks and it’s been fun.
Tags: golf, Kota Samarahan Golf Club, Kuching
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