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Carrying a bag can get a little tiring, and it especially wears you down in 90+ degree weather. This is why I play in the morning when it’s cooler and have scaled back on playing days back-to-back. But since it was in the mid-80s yesterday, and I could get the twilight rate starting at 2pm, I plunked down 20 bucks and went out. Might have been a better idea to stay at home.
Went +4 on the first three holes and turned over my hands on the drive. Birdied No. 6 by putting a 6-iron from 165 to within 4 feet. Then decided to double the next three holes by what I colloquially call fiddle-farting around. The backside wasn’t any better. Though we played in a little over four hours, our twosome was right behind a foursome that would finish teeing off just as we were walking off the green and had to wait on every hole. Nice of these guys to let us play through. The greens were also much firmer in the afternoon, I’m wondering if that’s why I had three 3-putts. Plus my back starts to ache after I’ve played the day before and am waiting to hit, letting myself stiffen up.
More of a disappointing round than anything else. Left three birdie putts just short, on Nos. 2 and 10 and lipped out a couple of par putts on Nos. 1, 8 and 18. I tried to recover from a couple of bad shots in a dumb way on 6 and 15, which accounts for the double and bogey there. Put my drive to within 250 on 18, then put the approach hole high but left next to the 10th teebox. Four shots in from there for bogey. No 3-putts at least. Play smarter next time I guess.
Yes, I know the scorecard says the 25th, just go with me here. New course back in the rotation, I haven’t put up a review yet, but here’s some highlights of the course:
-Large greens, at least 8 yards longer and/or wider than Ancil’s. Plus the greens have contours and sidehill putts.
-Course is 300 yards shorter, plus there’s much more wind.
-The fairways aren’t tight per se, but there aren’t bailout areas on the course. There are some forced layups (Nos. 1, 3, 6, 10, 16 & 18) which break it up a bit so as not to go into a creek or man-made lake.
As for today’s round, I ended up +4 on the last 3 holes. My 5-wood on 16 took a bad bounce and went into the right side lake. And I forgot to hit a 3-wood off the 18th, so my drive went long and messed up approach. Though it’s a par-5 with a creek cutting through the fairway, with a nice tailwind, it is reachable. 28 putts with two birdies on the back kept me in the game, but missed another couple of birdie putts on Nos. 2 and 7.
What a horribly underwhelming round. I’m beginning to notice I play a few strokes worse on the Tuesday leg of a Mon/Tue schedule, so I think I’m going to switch to Monday morning and Thursday afternoon. I got into trouble on No. 6 by pushing my drive into the right side, putting my approach shot into a short bunker and skulling the shot over the green. On No. 8 I pulled my drive left, pushed my 220-yard approach shot right, went into the trees, stayed there and came out with a double. Three 3-putts on the back nine didn’t help matters, and only one fairway for the day. Though I did have a number of drives that were in the first cut. Six GIRs are meaningless when I have 20 putts on the back 9. Guess I used my quota of chip-ins and birdies the day before.
Also on the upside, I went out as a single and was essentially the second group of the day. Passed a twosome on the 2nd hole and had someone sneak out onto the back with me. We played 16 holes in 2 hours and caught up with a tourney with a shotgun start. Their last group started on 14, so it took a twosome walking the same amount of time to play 7 holes as it did a foursome in a cart to play 2. Lovely. Last two holes took half an hour to play.
I had four chances at birdie from about 15′ and missed every putt by about two inches on the high side every time. The ones on No. 2 and No. 7 hurt the most. On No. 18, I had a 14′ birdie putt going uphill with a left to right break. The ball dipped down into the hole before dipping out and making a left turn. I put an eagle pitch from 30 yards out on No. 10 to 3 inches, which would have been nicer had it gone in. But on the next hole, I chipped in from 8 yards out, just off the green, for a birdie. What made it an 80 though was the double on 4, the 3-putt on 14 and the bogey on 15. I normally par each of these holes, so this could have been a 76/77 easily.
On another positive note, I played as a single and went through about 4-5 groups to finish in about 2.5 hours. I’ve had 9-holes at Ancil that have taken longer.
R15 should be more accurately written as R (subscript) 15, but I’m not quite sure how to do that on WordPress, so we’ll leave it at that. Located conveniently at R & 15th Street in Sacramento, the geonomous bar/grill/lounge has a number of flat screen tvs for sporting events. I headed over there to watch a couple of World Cup games.
The glass doors are red tinted, which give the interior a nice shaded look and thankfully doesn’t detract from the appearance of the food. A U-shaped bar greets most visitors, with televisions above the bar and around the walls, though the bar (annoyingly in my book) does not have a brass rail at the foot. A separated room contains 4 pool tables and the back of the bar is an attached eatery (Café Bernardo), whose menu is probably the same, but I ate in the bar side for the WC games.
I will give a high thumbs up to the calzone, though it may be salty for some. The dough is cooked crisply while still retaining moisture from the cheese on the bottom. The goat cheese/mozzarella ensemble brings an expected flavor with an unexpected one, and comes away with a pleasant feeling. The calzone is stuffed with Black Forrest Ham, which may contribute to the salt overtaste, but still good stuff.
Unfortunately the pizza needs a fork to be eaten properly. Taste wise, the chicken, cheese and asparagus combine to a smoky, salty feeling. However, structurally, the middle of the pizza detaches from the outer crusts too easily, resulting in essentially a bread piece in one hand needing a fork to scoop up the toppings. If you don’t mind that, go for the pizza as well.
Service was excellent, the servers helpful and the bartenders quick on a refill. The lunchtime crowd was sparse at best, even for World Cup games. The Italy/Paraguay had about half-dozen total and Brazil/North Korea perhaps an even dozen. A few office buildings in the area provided the crowd, and I have the feeling more folks headed to the Cafe side. If I lived downtown, I would head over there during the night, but given there’s a plethora of street parking and a cheap parking garage across the street ($2/hr), it’s an easy place to head to for lunch. They do offer valet parking for $5, but do not validate the garage.
Edit/Update-So I’ve made this my World Cup bar since it has side-by-side tvs and excellent food. I ought to give credit to Cafe Bernardo for the chow, since they’re the ones with the kitchen. And I’ve tried the Reuben (the fries are excellent, crunchy and salted well) and the pan-fried noodles (basically a chicken chow mein with cashew and vegetables). I thought I was ordering the Thai noodles, but I was mistaken, so something else I’ll have to sample in the next few days.
Bit of a mediocre round. I put a ball OB on the 4th and ended up with a triple, but hunkered down and finished the side even by holing out a pitch from 12 yards on the 9th. My short game has been spot on lately, and I was surprised that I hadn’t made a few by now. Birdied the 10th and 18th by hitting driver, 3-wood to the front edge of both greens and getting up and down well from there. Had about a 30 yard pitch to the flag on 10 that I put to within 3 feet, and then missed my eagle putt by about 4 inches on 18. (10 was playing upwind, 18 down). Decided to go double/triple on 15 and 16 by missing a 2 footer on 15 and then playing around too much in the woods on 16 while also flubbing a 95 yard pitch shot. Thankfully I put my next pitch to within 4 feet. Erase out the chip in along with the dumb mistakes and this 83 could have been a 76, easily.
Good round, I got up and down a lot to save par, and my lone birdie was on the No. 3 handicap hole. Had a dumb 3-putt on the 10th, which I attribute to the hole being on the topside of a slope and the greens having finally dried out. Since I normally tee off around 7am, it takes a couple of hours for the dew to burn off and the greens to harden up. I also had a lot of good hooded 4-iron shots out of trees that put me into some good spots. Punched out of the woods on the 11th to the green, out of the woods on the 12th to the fairway and out of the woods to hole-high on the 15th. Put a 3-wood just short of the green from a little over 245 out on 18 to get up and down to save the 78, my career round at Ancil.
I’m not going to reinvent the wheel, I was turned onto Shaz Indian by the following review from the Sacramento Bee a few months back. It is located near Haggin Oaks Golf Course, which is the home team for Mira Loma, so it was nearby after a lot of practices.
What little I can add to the review is that the lunch buffet is plentiful, though only “white people” hot. I’ve had dinner there twice and can confirm the lamb biriyani has a wonderful nutty consistency and the naan is as big as most dinner plates. Get a lhassi to counteract the capsaicin in the seasoning.
Wonderful stuff.
Good round today, though I missed two putts within 3-feet. Both were on slops, and that’s a bit of an excuse, but not much of one. I teed-0ff at 7:15 or so and ended a little over 3 hours later. I played about 45 rounds at Ancil last year and didn’t break 80, so this is a nice result. However, I still only converted one of my eleven GIRs into a birdie, and about six of those were makeable birdie putts.
Plus I got to say hello to this little guy in the morning:
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