Hooter's Tour - Victoria Open (Victoria, TX) - First Round

Today's Score: 71

I don't know what it is, but 3 out of the last 4 tournaments I've started off the first round shooting even par. The other time I shot +1 over. I remember a few months I ago I was writing about how I needed to do a better job of starting out golf tournaments with good scores instead of having to try and fight back in the second round to make the cut. Now, it seems that I've improved on my first round scoring average and need to work on carrying that over to day two.

For the second week in a row, I began the day with a birdie on the first hole. #1 is normally a 485yrd par-5 that the Hooter's Tour converted to a 471yrd par-4. So what is usually a pretty routine birdie when it plays as a par-5 has become a rather difficult par-4. Needless to say, starting off with a birdie there felt good. I followed that with a two-putt birdie at the par-5 4th hole and I was -2 under for the round. For the first 8 holes, I was swinging well and sticking to my game plan...."fairways and greens." The first glitch on the scorecard came on the 9th when I 3-putted from about 20ft. It wasn't the easiest putt I've ever had but certainly shouldn't of had 10ft coming back for par. Just a brain fart I guess. So I made the turn at -1 under.

#10 is one of the few holes that is a dogleg right (which I like) except that the out-of-bounds left makes it a little trickier than it should be. I started my drive just inside the tree line and faded it into the rough just off the fairway. I would of been better off missing it 50 yards right into #11 fairway which comes back the other way, because where I was there was no shot. All I could do was pitch out sideways and try to make par the hard way. I hit a wedge in there about 10ft but failed to convert the save. Then on #11, I just missed the fairway again except this time I had a shot and a pretty decent lie. I had only 146yds to the pin which is a perfect pitching wedge, however it flew about 150yrds and ended up over the green right in the collar where the fringe and rough meet. It was a very tough shot and I was on my way to making a third consecutive bogey. So, I went from -2 under to +1 over in three holes and really wasn't hitting bad shots. Fortunately, I was able to get one back on the par-4 17th and finished the round at even par (71).

My goal for this week is to hit 10 fairways a day. Today, I hit 7. I think if I would of reached the mark I set I would of been able to shoot 1 or 2 strokes less. But, even par isn't bad. I'll probably be in the middle of the pack somewhere leaderboard wise and need to shoot a couple under tomorrow to make it to the weekend. It would definitely be nice to get back under the cut line again and compete for four days. My tee time tomorrow is 2:00 off #10.