A good bogey arrived at the next hole after finding some of the thickest rough imaginable around the green but the wheels well and truly came off at the 8th, a visually terrifying hole with out-of-bounds stakes all the way down the right and a railway line beyond. From the elevated tee there appears to be bunkers everywhere. This was the hole that derailed Phil Mickelson in the first round, and I can now see why. After erring on the side of safety (read: pulled way left into the rough) I carved one into the furthest right of the three bunkers that lie short of the green. Blasting out heroically I watched in horror as the ball rolled back into the middle pit, from where my only option was to hit backwards. Airmailing the green with my next, I was fortunate to get down in two for a triple. The course had slapped me round the head for the first but not the last time.
A par at the 9th, a little gem of a par-three, meant I had played what is considered the easier of the two nines in seven-over. Not a disastrous score for my 11 handicap by any means but I felt like I had been striking the ball as well as I have ever done.
Another bunker visit at the 11th cost a shot but that was nothing compared to the train-wreck that was to be the 12th. Television really doesn't do this lengthy par-three and its extremely contoured green justice. My unintentionally aggressive 3-iron found yet more sand and three hacks and two putts later I walked off with my second triple bogey of the round. Ernie Els birdied this hole on the Sunday but his tee shot was only a couple of feet from finding the same bunker. Fortune favours the brave, I suppose.
By now, I was becoming more and more worried about the closing stretch, which my media colleagues were forever describing as the toughest finish in golf.
After a par at the benign 13th – how on earth did Tiger bogey this in the final round? – a by now routine bunker find at the next hole led to an acceptable bogey. On 15, the first of what I will call the "Adam Scott" holes, I hit my first truly wild shot of the day – a ghastly pull into the grandstand. I took a drop on some well-trodden turf and got away with a bogey. Had the grandstand not been there I would probably have lost my ball, such was the severity of the rough. At any rate, my five was good enough to match Scott's own five in the final round. The state of our imaginary game: level pegging.
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