Another Week

I shot a -2, 70 on Thursday. That put me at -1 for the tournament and the cut was at -3. I did play a lot better this week though, even though I did not make the cut. I just did not take advantage of the par 5's. I didn't put the ball in good position off the tee and that did not allow me to go after the short ones in 2.

The putting was "ok" the second day. I am still not making the amount of birdie putts that I need to. So I worked on that a little this weekend and hopefully it will be better next week.

Our tournament this week will be north of Charlotte. It is close enough that I can stay at home but it will be a little bit of a drive.

Better

Today was pretty solid tee to green. I shot +1, 72. I hit a lot of fairways and a fair amount of greens, but my putting struggled a little bit. I had 3 bogeys today and they were all 3-putts. The greens were punched a couple weeks ago and had some bumps. They were not bad enough to have that many 3-putts though. I just did not have a good feel for the speed out there. I left a couple birdie putts dead in the heart, just short.

All in all, I am pretty happy with the day. My comfort level is increasing every round and I am getting more accustom to the way it is out here. My confidence is improving and I am committing to all my shots.

I felt like I played very smart today, but just did not get the putts to drop. That will come, I just need to keep working on the putting.

I am going to have to play pretty well tomorrow to make the cut but I feel like I definitely have that in me right now!

Practice Practice Practice

Our next tournament is not until the end of May, so I have a lot of time to work on the things that I think are the reasons I have been struggling a little as of late. It feels good to be able to go out every day and work on things, instead of just a day here and day there.
I had my U.S. Open local qualifier up in Durham, NC earlier this week. I shot 73, which left my out of the 8 qualifying spots. I was +5 through 10, birdied 11, and then was in the middle of the fairway on 12 with a pitching wedge into the green. The pin was back left, with the green sloping from the back to front. Left of the green dropped off into a very low collection area. I missed the green deep left, which left me extremely short sided. After I hit the shot, I stood in the fairway and asked myself what in the heck I was doing! I realized that I really was not analyzing everything that I needed to going into every shot, and these were the things that I had been doing all year.
I somehow got up and down for par. I then went to the 13 tee at +4 and told myself that I needed to analyze each shot a lot more in order to put the ball where I needed to.
I then birdied 13, 14, and 15. I lipped out for birdie on 16, barely missed birdie on 17, and made a great up and down on 18 to shoot +1.
Even though I didn't qualify, I left the course feeling very satisfied! Now I am back in Charlotte practicing hard and doing a little caddying at Quail Hollow. I am going to work hard on my mental approach in the next two weeks to better understand what I need to do in order to position myself better and manage my way around the golf course in a better, more efficient manner.
On a side note, my boys of SJU are currently in 5th place at the National Championships going into the final round. Please keep them in your thoughts as they go out and try to win Saint John's their 3rd National Championship in 4 years!!

Funk

Well I had another not so good round yesterday that left me out of the weekend. My swing is just in a little funk right now and the ball is not flying like I want it to. I didn't drive the ball well at all this week, hit the irons everywhere, and putted average. I hit a lot of good putts that just didn't go in the hole.
All there is to do is work harder!

Bittersweet

Today was a good day overall! The reason the title is "Bittersweet", is because I left a lot of birdies out on the course today. I did however, make some clutch pars coming in to stay a couple under par, so that made me pretty happy! I will take -2 any day!

I had a lot of good chances today for birdie that I let slip by. I don't think I read the putts very well today and caught a lot of edges. I shot 37 on my opening nine, and then took advantage of the par 5's on the second nine to shoot 33.

The scores were real low today and as of right now, I am tied for 66th. So I got some work to do tomorrow if I want to be around on the weekend.

Look for another good update tomorrow night!