Score: 78
After missing the cut yesterday, Erika and I decided to make the drive back home and that has put me a little behind in getting this post up. I'm going to save yall the agony of having to read another blog describing every hole and how nothing seemed to go my way. Since I've already had 24hrs to go over every shot in my head, my goal is to move on and start preparing for next week. I guess in this business you've got to have a short memory to some aspect because after a bad month, a bad week or even a bad shot all that matters is the next shot or the next tournament and taking care of what needs to be done in order to be ready. So here is a somewhat shortened replay of yesterday's round.
The best shot of the day came on the second shot of the day as my approach into #1 hit the pin on the fly only to ricochet backwards 25ft from the flag. Par. On the very short, nearly drivable par-4 2nd, I decided to play safe by teeing off with a 5-iron only to hit the worst shot of the day as it went well right of the fairway and kicked into a very wooded area. Unmarked by any hazard stakes, I was unable to locate my ball and forced to re-tee. Double Bogey. On the 3rd hole, I hit another iron off the tee and ended up to the right again except this time I was right behind a tree. Forced to pitch out, I made bogey (5). Good birdie on the 4th hole and back to +2 over. The choke-down three-quarter lob wedge I hit for second shot into #6 from 100yards flew over the green and left a very difficult up-and-down. Bogey and back to +3 over. Still playing aggressive, I hit driver on #8 and the dreaded straight ball wound up behind yet another tree. Another bogey and now I'm +4 over. Again with the "attack mode" mindset, I hit driver on #9 only to go straight through the fairway out-of-bounds. Another double-bogey and I shoot +6 over on the front.
So here's a situation as a professional golfer that you really want to avoid finding yourself in. You're +8 over par for a golf tournament, you've got 9 holes left to make the cut and you've basically got to birdie every hole on the back nine. Quite the task but for me its enough of a challenge to make it even worth trying. When I walked off the last hole, I could say that I at least gave myself a chance for birdie on every hole except one. Every birdie attempt was within 20ft, but I just couldn't get a putt to fall. The greens were hard to judge this week as slow and grainy as they were rolling. The one hole that I didn't have a birdie putt was the one I made bogey on and that was just because a slight miss off the tee found one of the worst lies I've seen in the rough in a long time. Whatever troubles I was having on the front side seemed to disappear, and I finished with 8 pars and a bogey.
I'm back in New Orleans for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. It feels good to be home, but it's not going to be for long since Erika and I will be leaving early Monday morning for next week's Hooter's Tour event in Auburn, AL. It will be tournament number four in a row and I think you can expect a little break to follow once we finish up there. I'm pleased to report that this afternoon's practice session reached a level I haven't seen since early April around the time I was qualifying for the Zurich Classic. My swing felt solid and I had complete control over the ball. Why all of a sudden things decided to come together once again I don't know, but I'm certainly not complaining. Hopefully I can groove this feel over the weekend and carry it forward into next week's event. I'll have more on that and a update on this renewed swing thought in the days to follow.
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