My first "plus cap" round (shooting under the course rating). What was yours like?

[RoyalMustang]

I'm a 4.9 and have been playing better recently, but I always fell victim to a really bad swing coming out of nowhere. Usually a duck hook leading to a double or worse, at least 3 times a round. The other day on the course, I just kept thinking about how I could get to the top of the swing better, and thought that perhaps my hips are stuck because I'm not working my ankles to get my hip back. So, I started to aggressively dorsiflex the front ankle (left for me as I am a RH player). On the very first swing, I striped a 4-iron from the fairway 230 yards; it was as good of a swing as I had ever made. Perfect balance and felt completely effortless. 

 

Fast forward to yesterday, and I try to remember that move each and every swing. The result was no double bogeys, only one duck hook that I got away with, and with "misses" that were playable. I had short birdie putts all day long and ended up shooting a 73 on a 73.6/133 course. If I hadn't been 1/5 on makeable par saves from under 8 feet, it would have been even better, but I offset that with 5 birdies. 

 

I'm not under par yet, but this is definitely a great feeling! My coach always says in our lessons that I should be playing at this level based on the quality of my contact; somehow we never figured out the source of my inconsistency however. He always thought it was tempo, and that contributes, but my tempo was off because I would get stuck and not complete the swing. 

 

Do you remember the first round that you were under the course rating? Was it an anomaly for you or a marker of better play to come? I know that some people are 10 caps and shoot a 68 out of nowhere but never go low again; others won't ever play 15 strokes better than their cap but they steadily improve. 

[Denny100]

For me the very first time was when i shot 69 on a par 72 (sss 71) course. The old handicapping system.

 

The way i can describe it was that i played the round id played in my head a hundred times.....but never ACTUALLY played.

 

Namely i got into a lovely groove of visualising the shot, a good routine and then executing the shot. All the cliches of one shot at a time were true and i was accurate and it felt very easy.

 

Ive broken par a lot of times since but its always that feeling of being "in" the round mentally.

 

Going forwards it gave me the feeling "i CAN do this". Obviously lots of times i dont but i felt it validated my game and taught me the importance of the mental side of the game because i didnt do anything else swing wise to shoot the 69 that day.

[MelloYello]

To accomplish it on my home track you technically need to shoot 1-under 71 as a level par round is actually -0.2 or something like that.

 

As I recall, I arrived pretty nervous on the Par5 18th desperately needing just 1 more par to drag things across the finish line and shoot 71. I knew I was playing well but when you're setting a PR there's no way to avoid it. You know exactly what's happening and what you have to do. 

 

I (somehow) hit a great drive so I was in position to attack the green in 2. I hit some sort of long club that actually landed on the green which kind of secured things. 

 

I knew I had 3 putts for the par but thankfully my lag putt got close enough that I could tap in for birdie which obviously took me to 2-under 70. 

 

It was a big moment for sure! 🙂

 

Since then, I've done it a bunch more and every time it gets easier and much more enjoyable. The last time I was literally feeling like I was in attack mode on holes 15-18. I was under par as I came through the back-9 and I think I made some really bad swing on #14 and missed an easy GIR.

 

It was such a pathetic swing that I was really frustrated by it. I let the nerves get to me and made a nervous, uncommitted pass at the ball. As I came off the 14th green I was thinking, 'Screw being a coward or feeling nervous. I'm swinging free and easy on every swing from here on out,' and I proceeded to hit the rest of the GIR and birdied #16 and #18 coming in.

 

That's an even better feeling knowing you can take those nerves and go get it. That's what it's really about. Seeing the moment as an opportunity. Trust what got you there and go do it!

 

 

.

Edited September 26, 2023 by MelloYello

[RoyalMustang]

20 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

To accomplish it on my home track you technically need to shoot 1-under 71 as a level par round is actually -0.2 or something like that.

 

As I recall, I arrived pretty nervous on the Par5 18th desperately needing just 1 more par to drag things across the finish line and shoot 71. I knew I was playing well but when you're setting a PR there's no way to avoid it. You know exactly what's happening and what you have to do. 

 

I (somehow) hit a great drive so I was in position to attack the green in 2. I hit some sort of long club that actually landed on the green which kind of secured things. 

 

I knew I had 3 putts for the par but thankfully my lag putt got close enough that I could tap in for birdie which obviously took me to 2-under 70. 

 

It was a big moment for sure! 🙂

 

Since then, I've done it a bunch more and every time it gets easier and much more enjoyable. The last time I was literally feeling like I was in attack mode on holes 15-18. I was under par as I came through the back-9 and I think I made some really bad swing on #14 and missed an easy GIR.

 

It was such a pathetic swing that I was really frustrated by it. I let the nerves get to me and made a nervous, uncommitted pass at the ball. As I came off the 14th green I was thinking, 'Screw being a coward or feeling nervous. I'm swinging free and easy on every swing from here on out,' and I proceeded to hit the rest of the GIR and birdied #16 and #18 coming in.

 

That's an even better feeling knowing you can take those nerves and go get it. That's what it's really about. Seeing the moment as an opportunity. Trust what got you there and go do it!

 

 

.

 

yeah, the mental part is something I was thinking of. Being loose and relaxed is 80% of the game. I bogeyed my last hole yesterday to just miss out on getting par for the first time, but I was relaxed. I smoked my drive 290 into a decent headwind: I just misjudged the wind on my approach shot and left the ball a few yards short in the bunker, plugged. Stupid mistake. But I was happy going into it as I wasn't tight at all, thinking "I need par or birdie here". 

[AlohaPineapple]

2 hours ago, Denny100 said:

For me the very first time was when i shot 69 on a par 72 (sss 71) course. The old handicapping system.

 

The way i can describe it was that i played the round id played in my head a hundred times.....but never ACTUALLY played.

 

Namely i got into a lovely groove of visualising the shot, a good routine and then executing the shot. All the cliches of one shot at a time were true and i was accurate and it felt very easy.

 

Ive broken par a lot of times since but its always that feeling of being "in" the round mentally.

 

Going forwards it gave me the feeling "i CAN do this". Obviously lots of times i dont but i felt it validated my game and taught me the importance of the mental side of the game because i didnt do anything else swing wise to shoot the 69 that day.

 

can 100% relate to this feeling, best rounds feel... cliche.  taking my time pre/post shot routine, having positive thoughts, treating all the putts the same, laying up

[IcemanYVR]

It never occurred to me... I never once thought; "I need to shoot x number to beat the course rating". I was always focussed on shooting the lowest score possible, and when I had a chance to shoot under par, or break 70, I was all in on that, never considered what the course rating was. 

[Ghostwedge]

I actually had to go dig a scorecard out of my bag from my home course.

Played it a million times and couldn't remember the rating from my tee's (71.8)

So I've beat it a few times this year, I need to play better overall.

The fun stuff is when you do something like break your personal  record like most birdies in a row during a round or most greens, etc. 

Of course a career low round is the best one.

[b.mattay]

My first time breaking the course rating was a -5.4 differential ( 67 on a 72.4/137). Bogeyed the first hole, got to -2 through 15 and birdied 16,17,18. I was about a 5 handicap at the time. Got to scratch within a year and half of that and to a +3 within another few years. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by b.mattay

[david.c.w]

Mine was just this past Labor Day.  Shot 71 as a 4.1.  Ended up as a -0.6 differential.  By far the best iron day of my life.   My general scoring is between 78 and 82.  

 

I had 2 birdies and 1 bogey.  Funny part was that I had 9 other birdie putts within 20 ft.  None of them dropped.  Could have been even better. 

 

71.7/136

 

 

 

 

[St Jimmy]

As an 8,  I've never even heard of this mysterious thing you call the "plus cap".

[jordan2240]

Mine was like a dream come true, but it turned out to just be a dream.

[Wooley12]

Guess I never beat it but as a 11HC I matched it once. Didn't play again for a while to savor it. 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Wooley12

[golfwb]

I’m pretty sure mustang gets paid by golfwrx to make up topics. 

[SNIPERBBB]

Only thing I can remember about it now was I 4-putted the par 3 15th for double bogey and birdied the last 2 holes coming in.

Edited September 30, 2023 by SNIPERBBB

[MtlJeff]

It was a shotgun start probably 15-16 years ago, and because of the hole I started on 3 of the last 4 holes were par 5s. I ended up making birdie on all 3 of them to shoot 71. 

 

I still recall it pretty well. 

 

Was it a sign of things to come? I suppose so, I have 18 + rounds this year. 

[Phabs]

The first time I shot under par was my soph year of high school.  Shot 69 at a 71.1 course to win by four.  I’d say that 69 when I was 16 was definitely the start of the golf addiction and the following 15 years of competitive golf were a result without a doubt.  

[larrybud]

On 9/26/2023 at 1:31 PM, Denny100 said:

For me the very first time was when i shot 69 on a par 72 (sss 71) course. The old handicapping system.

In the US, the single score differential calculation didn't change under the WHS, only the Course Handicap calculation (and the index calculation)

[RoyalMustang]

On 9/30/2023 at 10:26 PM, Phabs said:

The first time I shot under par was my soph year of high school.  Shot 69 at a 71.1 course to win by four.  I’d say that 69 when I was 16 was definitely the start of the golf addiction and the following 15 years of competitive golf were a result without a doubt.  

 

As a sophomore; that's sick! I've been playing 5 years cumulatively now (2 back in JR high and 3 since COVID, 25 years in between) and I still haven't broken par! Been close a number of times.

 

My brother was a multiple tournament medalist in HS and I don't think he ever broke 74. But Oregon is not exactly a golf hotbed. I won a tournament going away as a 7th grader by shooting 80. 

[Hawkeye77]

Not minimizing the round or any metrics anyone wants to use, but I've never looked at a course in the context of what my score was in my life, never entered my mind to do so.  I might the next time I'm out of town, if I have a good round, which means I probably won't need to look.