At the end of last month’s post, I mentioned that my non-driver-related golf goal for the end of the season is to break 90.
I figured there was a small chance I’d be able to flirt with 90 once, if all of the stars in my golf game aligned — I never expected to actually break 90 for the first time before the end of August.
And that’s exactly what I was able to do at Saugeen Golf Club in Port Elgin, Ont. I shot an 87 on a par 72. It’s the first time I’ve ever played better than bogey golf. I even triple-bogeyed the first hole, but I was able to get my round back on track, when, in the past, my score would have easily been over 100 with a poor start like that.
When I entered my score into the Golf Canada app to track my handicap, it adjusted my score from a +15 to a +16, taking into account the relative difficulty of the course and the tee I played from.
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The app does that for every round you play. For example, I played two other rounds at different courses and shot 96 and 91, but my adjusted score was +21 for both. It’s a cool way to keep track of your progress consistently across different courses.
That round also proved lucrative in another way. I’m in a bet with five members of Saugeen Golf Club, all of whom are better players than me (going INTO this season anyway).
They are L.E., Kiwi, Dino, Jimmy D, and Jimmer, and their handicaps range from 6 to 15. At the start of the summer, before I had even broken 100, I bet each of them that I could beat them straight up in a stroke play match, once, before June 2025. We didn’t have to play in the same pairing, but we had to play the same course on the same day.
The stakes: Each player I beat before the deadline, they would owe me a case of beer after I won. Each player that I couldn’t beat would get a case of beer from me in June 2025.
I wasn’t expecting to get anyone this year, but when I shot 87, Dino and Jimmer had teed off two hours before I did. They both shot 88. I needed a bogey on the 18th hole to beat them and I did exactly that.
Let me tell you: that victory beer has never tasted so good.
Two down, three to go.
And three yards to go to 300 after my coach, Stew Bannatyne, from Modern Golf, made a couple of small tweaks to my driver swing that led to some big improvements in the video above.
I’m using my driver a little more on course now as my confidence improves and I’m hoping we cross the 300-yard barrier at some point this month!
Mike Arsenault is a Digital Broadcast Journalist and a host of Global News Weekend.
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