2013-12-15 30 -81

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Expedition

The Plan

In the middle of the fairway between a bunker and some trees on the 18th hole at Champion's Club at Julington Creek. That's a mouthful. Planning to play a round of golf and hit this one as I get there.

The Geohashers

Geoff

The Adventure

Golf Planning

Today, I learned the importance of having a proper GPS when geohashing.

I left around 11:00 after gleaning a bit of knowledge from their website and the weather sites. It's full price as they open, a bit cheaper after 11, and cheapest after 3. My thinking was that the serious golfers would be there early, while it'd be most popular with the cheapest price. Pay a bit more and have the course to myself!

What's even nicer is the fact that it worked.

Golf Experience

The course wasn't in the best shape, due to the rain we had last night continuing into today. Due to the layout of the course, this created a few standing water traps in the middle of the fairway and converted a few bunkers similarly. Surprisingly, the only ones that ever gave me trouble were meant to be there. As I mentioned in a previous hash, I'm not a great golfer, so if I can keep my score in double digits, I've had a great time. On top of score, there were two stats I decided to track:

FIR: Fairway in Regulation. From the tee, the ball is driven into the fairway. Doesn't apply on Par 3s.
GIR: Green in Regulation. Reach the green in two shots under par. This is why there's no FIR on a Par 3.

There were five tee colors by difficulty: Gold, Blue, White, Green, Red. I took Green because I wasn't a masochist. Maybe if I take some lessons I'll graduate to the whites.

The front 9 was unremarkable in the way that bad golf is unremarkable. On the opening hole, I just could not, for the life of me, get the ball over my head. It was very frustrating and I was considering just driving the course in the cart. By the second hole I was frustrated with my frustration and just focused on my swing. And that's when I pounded out my first real drive. Coincidentally, this was when I lost my first ball, which is strange given that there's no traps or hazards around: I just couldn't find the blasted thing. The rest of it was mostly maintaining that level of badness. On the eighth hole, there was a lake on the right hand side that definitely did not play to my slice. I got lucky in that the ball stopped just shy of the water... except pitching it back onto the fairway put it straight into some dense vegetation near someone's house. No way was I getting that ball back. I surprised myself on the ninth hole. I finally got under the ball and got into the hang of it, to the point of actually getting par for once! Everything's coming up Geoff!

The back nine was where I got much better; 60 strokes for the front, but 46 for the back. The twelfth hole... I don't know what happened, but I drove that ball like a pro. According to the scorecard, it was 282 yards from tee to green, and I covered that distance in two shots. That alone made the entire trip worth it. Still didn't help my putting game. The 15th and 16th had environmentally sensitive areas that otherwise functioned as a hole-dividing lake. Signs were posted to not go after balls shot in, and naturally on both holes, it went straight in. By the short Par 3 of the 17th, I had a good feel for my abilities at that point and managed to drive the ball practically next to the flag in one. Lucky me, managed a birdie!

Golf Geohash

The 18th hole was the big one. It ran parallel to the 10th, but the geohash fell on the fairway of the 18th, so I decided to let it wait. I wrote geohashing.org and the date/coordinates on one of my spare balls, then teed up and drove. Off into the rough. Grabbed a five iron and pitched it back onto the fairway around the geohash, intending to land the ball as close to the geohash as possible. The metadata on the pictures say I wasn't quite close enough, but I'm saying I did pretty well. Nailed the latitude, but the longitude was off to the east by 0.25″. I walked all along the fairway around that spot, so I know I got to the geohash, just the pictures are a bit off.

What happened was that on that specific hole, in that area, while on the fairways? No GPS coverage whatsoever. Every time I would reload my app, it would say I was 0.64 km away and in someone's yard. I'm disappointed that was all I got out of it, but that's what I get for not bringing the usual GPS with me, I guess. Thankfully, it was between a bunker and a set of three trees, and the app provided a satellite view of Google maps, so I could at least triangulate my position well enough to say I got it. Once I was finished with the pictures, I took the marked balls and tossed it into the island of trees; someone ought to see it from there.

Golf Stats

Front 9: 60
Back 9: 46
Total: 106

FIR: 9/14
GIR: 2/18
Balls Lost: 4 (1 lost, 1 vegetation, 2 environmentally sensitive areas)

Gallery

Photo Gallery
Environmentally sensitive area, please don't enter. Showed up twice, lost a ball each time.
Some of the smaller newly created traps. Wouldn't want to play in summer if this is regular.
Probably my second proudest drive, I ended up birdieing that hole.
The bunker to the left I used to roughly triangulate.
The trees to the right I used to roughly triangulate.
What I saw on the 10th and 18th hole.
Better view for where it thought I was.