THE SWING REPORT

You won Week 7. How does that feel?

The result is the result. What I care about is that I had a plan on the first tee and I was still running the same plan on the ninth green, which has not happened to me all year. The plan was: nothing heroic. Take the stroke, take the bogey, walk. Gross 45 is not a number anybody frames. Net 35 is what the plan produces if you leave it alone.

The wind helped, in the sense that it made the decision for me. When it's blowing like that you stop asking whether you could get there and start asking what happens if you don't. That's the whole method. I just usually need a gale to remember it.

The ninth. Par 5, you took 4.

First birdie of the season. Seven weeks. I'd like to say it was the plan coming to fruition but honestly the plan does not include birdies, the plan includes bogeys and the occasional par, and the birdie was a clerical surprise at the end of a well-run afternoon.

Next week the plan is the same plan. Same clubs off the tee, same target, same walk. If it produces a 35 again, good. If it produces something worse, that's information, not a reason to change anything.

Let's talk about the first hole.

It's an 8. It's on the card. It was signed for and it's been entered, and as far as I'm concerned the matter is closed and correctly documented.

Four over par. On the opening hole.

Yes. I'd also draw your attention to the 7 on the 8th, a par 3, and the 9 on the ninth, a par 5, both of which are likewise recorded accurately and neither of which I intend to discuss. I'm not distressed about any of them. I'd simply like them filed.

Three of our members didn't play today, and I want to say I understand them better than I did on Wednesday. There's a version of this week where I'm at home with a cold drink and the card doesn't exist. That version is not on file.

The wind was a factor, but I'd be misrepresenting the afternoon if I blamed it. Put it down as noted, not as a defence.

Low gross for the day. What went right?

Hit it, found it, hit it again.

The birdie on the fourth — par 5, you took 4. Walk me through it.

Two good ones and a putt.

There was a feeling on the tee that this was going to be your week.

There was.

And?

It wasn't. I had high hopes. They got dashed. That's the entire story and I don't have a longer version of it, so I'd stop digging.

Anything you'd do differently?

Not out loud.

Biggest improvement on the card against your own form. What changed?

Nothing changed, which is the annoying part. Same swing, same bag, same wind in the face on every hole that mattered. I just stopped losing balls. Turns out that's most of it.

I'll say this for a windy day: everybody's out there suffering equally, so nobody's watching you. Very freeing. Fanelli's off playing chess with himself, Gajewski's not speaking, and the rest of us are holding our hats on.

And Dalton's afternoon?

Dalton nearly got bitten by a rattlesnake. I was ten yards away and I have never seen a man leave a lie that quickly. The snake was, by all accounts, the more composed of the two, and Dalton has since decided that particular area of rough is out of play for the season regardless of what the rules say.

We were down three members today, and I'd like it recorded that the three who stayed home missed the snake, missed the wind, and missed Fanelli's birdie. Two out of three of those is a good trade.