A few chips and a few putts and it’s off to the first tee. The Outcast will be off in the last group with Chicken Noodle and Mr. Z. He makes a solid pass at the ball and finds the fairway just a gap wedge away. A GIR and routine two putt will have The Outcast starting the day with a par.

The par five second will not be as rewarding. The Outcast’s drive fails to draw back to the fairway and slides down the steep slope to  the lake. A fairway metal follows the same fate … a watery grave at the edge of the green. A wedge and a couple of putts has The Outcast sulking off the green.

The Outcast will have a GIR at three and then tempted by a twelve foot putt hammers it by the hole. He’ll make the come back putt but his knees are bruised from knocking together as he stood over the putt.

The Outcast will grind his way around the front side and make the turn even against his points. Mr Z is plus one and Chicken Noodle is even.

The Outcast will start the back nine  slowly … bogey and double bogey. Then the par train arrives and The Outcast climbs aboard. He gets of the train at fifteen with a three putt bogey and then triple bogeys the par five sixteenth in much the same fashion as the second. Outcast, you may want to rethink your strategy of how to play par fives. The days of blasting a drive and bombing a fairway metal and having a chip or putt for eagle are long gone. New strategy … keep the ball in play and hope for a reasonable attempt at birdie.

The back nine takes its toll on the threesome. Mr Z and The Outcast finish at minus one and Chicken Noodle is minus three. The Padre will be the winner for the second week in a row; The Mason is a close second. The Outcast will manage to win a couple of skins to keep the day from being a total lose.

The Outcast heads home to contemplate par five strategy before Saturdays round.

Balls are dropped in The Outcast’s hat and tossed. The Cowboy, The Chairman and The Outcast are the first group and will get a blind bogey as their fourth. ‘Vette Guy, Computer Man, Mr. Seminole and The Painter will be the second group. The game for the day is best two on the four’s and five’s and best three on the three’s.

The Outcast will find the fairway along with his partners on the opening hole. A mid iron approach finds the green but a sixty foot putt awaits. The Cowboy and The Chairman will miss the green and narrowly miss their up and down attempts. The Outcast rolls a solid lag putt and taps in for par. The team marches off to the second tee one under.

The Outcast will take dead aim at two; the tee shot lands, spins left and stops two feet short of the hole. The birdie putt is a nonchalantly tapped in. The Cowboy will lip out a par saving putt while The Chairman will fight some short game strokes for a triple. The team moves to one over.

The Outcast will have a twelve foot birdie opportunity at the third. The putt chatters to a halt millimeters short … dead center cut. These will be the last good holes for The Outcast on the front nine. Bogeys and doubles will be his reward to the turn. The Chairman and The Cowboy will also be fighting demons on the front and the team will start the back nine at plus two.

The Outcast is greeted with an inauspicious start on the back … bogey-bogey. He begins to rally at twelve. An eighteen foot putt for birdie just trickles by the hole. A twelve foot putt for birdie at thirteen catches the low lip of the cup and spins out. Another birdie opportunity inside twelve feet is missed at fifteen. The Outcast will close out the round with up and down saves on the last three holes. The Cowboy and The Chairman have some solid holes and the team rebounds on the back side to finish at one under for the day. It appears the only hope will be for a great blind bogey draw.

Computer Man is the blind bogey. A quick recalculation of the card has the team improving to minus ten. A reasonable score. But, not reasonable enough. Mr. Seminole finishes his calculations and reports minus fifteen. Get out your wallet Outcast.

Tuesday it’s off to St Johns Golf & CC for a round with the Redneck Ramblers. They have an internet special for before 9 AM play. The weather forecast calls for an over night low in the mid 50′s so the early start shouldn’t be punishing.

The Outcast will pull his opening drive into the hazard … the first of many low quality misses. The Outcast will prove the old adage in golf that the game is all about the quality of your misses.

The Outcast will hit a reasonable drive on two and then stripe a short iron to the green. The approach is just a bit too strong to a back hole location and trickles of the back edge into the rough. The Outcast is faced with a menacing down hill chip with an enormous amount of left to right break. The chip lands on the collar of the green and slowly rolls four feet past the hole. The Outcast will make the putt to save par.

The next hole has The Outcast recording another low quality miss. He short sides himself and is confronted with another downhill chip from thirty yards. He’s not as successful this time and runs the ball completely across the green. Some careless putting leads to to a three putt. Frustrating is beginning to set in quickly.

This pattern of solid holes followed by holes with missed shots will be the order of the day. The Outcast will finish the day at seven points under his target. His playing partners, The Padre and Chicken Noodle, will finish even and minus two respectively. As the following groups report their scores, the results are similar to those of The Outcast. Padre and Chicken Noodle will be the winners for the day. There will be five skins for the day. The Outcast won’t lay claim to any of them.

Buckle down Outcast. You’ll need to play better or be laughed off the course. Saturday will be a new round and will offer new optimism. Yes, the glass is half full.

The Outcast will pull his drive into the trees on the first hole. He sees a hole between two trees and scorches a low four iron through it. He’s left with a sand were to the green; it lands softly in front of the hole and trickles four feet past the hole. The putt is a ball outside the hole and takes the break perfectly to drop into the center of the cup. A solid recovery from a less than spectacular start.

The Outcast will miss the green at the second also. He makes solid chip that touches the edge of the cup and is left with a six inch tap in par. Maybe The Outcast’s focus on his short game over the last two weeks is paying off.

The Outcast will find bunkers at six and eleven. They both have a hardpan bottom that has The Outcast blast out beyond the green. Spend some time in the practice bunker Outcast … that’s part of the short game equation too.

The Outcast will birdie twelve. The year is off to a good start; he has had a birdie in each round he’s played. Computer Man will card a birdie on the both the front and back nine. The Painter will record a birdie at seventeen.

Tuesday it’s off to the Champions at Julington Creek. The weather forecast calls for much warmer conditions. Wahoo!

The Tuesday group reschedules Eagle Landing after cancelling last weeks round because of the sever cold snap. Eagle landing is in excellent shape; the greens are over seeded and the bermuda fairways and rough have transformed into the dormant winter tan that provides a striking contrast to the brilliant green of the putting surfaces. There is something about this contrast of colors that appeals to The Outcast’s eye.

Ten players are signed up for the day’s play. The Outcast, Chicken Noodle and Mr. Z are the first group off. The Outcast lashes at the ball with his first swing of the day. It flies straight and true to the middle of the fairway; a short iron remains to the green. The short iron isn’t quite as solidly struck and comes up a couple of paces short of the green. The Outcast uses the putter to roll the ball the ten feet short of the hole. He follows the principles advanced by his new putting guru and stokes the ball into the hole. Mr. Z chips to gimme range and saves his par. Chicken Noodle  struggles with the speed of the greens and three putts for a double.

The Outcast will par four of the next five holes on a strong putting performance. The only unsettling putt is a ten foot birdie putt that stops on the front lip of the hole. The front side is completed with Mr. Z at plus four, and Chicken Noodle and The Outcast even.

The Outcast makes a strong start on the back nine when he rolls in a twelve foot birdie putt at the tenth. He will miss another  birdie putt from short range at seventeen when he hammers the putt through the break. The round ends with Chicken Noodle even, The Outcast at plus three and Mr. Z at plus seven.

Mr. Z slides to second place when The Painter walks into the Grille Room and announces a career low round and a plus eleven. While waiting for the last group to arrive, sandwiches are ordered. The Outcast chooses a grilled cheese with tomato and bacon on rye bread. The sandwich arrives and is sumptuous. The cheese is just barely oozing out from the edge of the bread, the tomato is still cool and naturally there could never be anything wrong with bacon. Sweet potato fries with fresh ground salt provide the perfect accompaniment. The Outcast savors every bite of the sandwich. It soothes the memories of missed birdie putts and an opportunity to break 80.

The final group arrives and The Painter and Mr. Z maintain their positions. Skins are are called and The Outcast is blanked; his birdie is cancelled by St. Augustine Jeff’s birdie.

As The Outcast heads home, the blue sky begins to cloud over. The weather prediction is for rain to begin over night and continue through Wednesday. The Outcast’s mid week round at Magnolia Point my be a rain out.

The Outcast’s new year’s resolution was an improved short game. He’s going to start the improvement with putting since that accounts for nearly fifty percent of the strokes in a round. Podcast reviews and internet searches turn up a putting guru, Geoff Magnum, new to The Outcast. He’s just a wee bit eccentric which may be part of his appeal to The Outcast.

The Outcast spends the bulk of his pre round warm up on the putting green. The putting guru’s techniques are simple but consistently applying them isn’t. In addition, the Magnolia Point greens are lightning fast. The new winter technique of not over seeding them makes them the fastest greens in NE Florida during the winter; down hill putts are nearly impossible to stop near the cup.

Balls are tossed for teams. He Who Never Loses, Mr. Great Wall, The Painter and Computer Man are the first team. The Outcast is with The Cowboy, Big Bopper and The Chairman. The game is best two balls on the par three’s and four’s and best three balls on the par five’s.

The Outcast plays a solid front nine from the ball striking point of view but his putting doesn’t show much improvement. Four birdie attempts, three from inside eighteen feet, are fruitless. One three putt blemishes the side. The team performance is also mediocre … one under.

The speed of play becomes excruciatingly slow on the back nine. A foursome that teed off nearly forty minutes before the Saturday group has been caught. They apparently are playing a grudge match or a super large wager match. No putts are conceded and even what appears to be inside the leather is painstakingly lined up and putted. People leaning on clubs in the fairway are ignored.

The Outcast rolls in a thirty foot birdie putt at eleven. The first birdie of 2012 … maybe Geoff the Guru’s putting techniques are starting to take hold. Nope, The Outcast will three putt four of the remaining greens. Fortunately, his team mates carry the load and the team moves to ten under for the day.

He Who Never Loses is unable to pencil whip their scorecard into a better number. The Outcast starts the year with a birdie,  a win and another appointment at the practice green.

If these terms don’t mean anything to you, then you need to do a search on google or you tube with the term Geoff Mangum. This putting guru will definitely bend your mind around some new different putting concepts.

The Outcast hasn’t touched a club since before Christmas. A bucket of balls at the range proves to be very beneficial. As he arrives at the putting green, ubiquitous chatter fills the air. The highlights and lowlights of the year for any given category are the drivers of the conversation.

As the tee time approaches, the final decision is to have two man teams as the game for the day with points as the yardstick … team sellection will be a draw at the end of the round.The Outcast is in the final group, a foursome, with The Cowboy, The Chairman and Promo Guy. The Outcast draws his drive just a bit too much and it clips the trees. A friendly squirrel  deflects it to the middle of the fairway. A pulled long iron leaves him with an up and down opportunity. Two foozled  chips and The Outcast walks off the green with a double bogey. The Outcast will need to draw a good partner if his short game continues in this fashion.

The second and third holes are GIR checks and routine pars. As the group walks off the third green, He Who Never Loses drives up with the announcement that Mr. En Fuego’s back has gone out on him. One of our group needs to join his group and the game will change to best two balls for each of the threesomes. A tee is tossed and The Cowboy is chosen to move to the other group.

The Outcast will make poor chips at four, five, six and seven to give away pars. He isn’t helping the team with this type of performance. As a matter of fact, he may be rubbing off on his partners. The team makes the turn at plus one … that certainly will not be in the hunt for the winning score.

The Outcast starts the back nine with three failed up and down opportunities. A New Year’s resolution begins to form in the back of The Outcast’s mind … work to improve your short game. The Outcast will record four pars in the last six holes and the fire to return and play the game next year is ignited.

The winning team is The Cowboy, He Who Never Loses and The Painter; their minus thirteen is an easy winner over The Outcast’s team’s minus six. Computer Man, ‘Vette Guy and Mr. Heathcare are a distant last at plus one.

Bets are paid, hands are shaken and New Year’s wishes are extend. Look out 2012 … here we come!

The Outcast starts with his usual missed putt to save par. At two he makes the short putt and saves par. The front nine is a solid performance except for a course management error at nine which blemishes his card with a triple. The team completes nine holes at seven under. A respectable number that gives the team a dance for a win.

The Outcast will alternate between pars and bogeys on the back. While not a great round, it is solid enough to begin to renew The Outcast’s confidence. The team will card another minus seven on the backside. The total of minus fourteen is winner. The Outcast is over joyed to finally end up on the winning side of the ledger. It seems like a month of Sunday’s since the last win.

The Outcast will be storing the clubs in the garage for a Christmas break. He hopes that this glimmer  of confidence will carry through the Holiday hiatus.

The Outcast will complete the front nine at minus  one against his point total. After the four par open this result has The Outcast weeping in  his Diet Pepsi. The shaken confidence will grow on the back nine and The Outcast finishes the day minus five. Needless to say he isn’t in the day money hunt. Without a  birdie to his credit, there are no skins opportunities either.

On the way home, The Outcast keeps a sharp look out for a Santa Claus; he needs to climb into his lap and ask for a long list of golf help items. At the top of the list would be some confidence.