Cypress Lakes Open

Normally, I'd be posting a preview on the golf course after my practice round but instead I'm going to just go ahead and tell you how the first round went. Why? Well, that's because for the first time in my life I messed up the dates of a golf tournament. I thought the first round started Tuesday, but in actually began today. It all came to light yesterday afternoon as we were driving back to Houston from Baton Rouge. I called the pro shop to make a tee time for a practice round the next day and the guy tells me that the tournament started that day. I was quite confused at first, but the guy sure sounded confident and after Erika confirmed it on her phone I knew I was in a bit of a pickle. It was 3:00 on Sunday afternoon, about 2 hours away from Houston and there was no way I was going to get there in time to play a practice round. We pulled into the golf course at about 5:15 which was just enough to find the place and steal a scorecard off one of the empty golf carts. That was going to be my study guide for the night.

So, this morning I decided to get out to the course a little earlier than usual to have more time to get used to the greens. My warm-up session went great and as it approached my tee time, I felt confident that it was going to be a good day even without knowing the course.

The first few holes were a little rough. I hit driver off #1 cause everyone else did and it ended up costing me a bogey. It's a short hole and driver brings the only trouble on the hole into play. I know better for tomorrow. On #2,3 & 4 I made three great par saving putts that really set the pace for the rest of the round. From the 5th hole on, I was finally able to settle down and played the remaining 14 holes -3 under par. Final Score: 70 and currently in a tie for 7th place.

It was another solid ball striking day overall, but most importantly, I finally made some putts. This time I got the 28 total putts that I set as a goal last week and I was able to shoot under par.....amazing. Just more proof that putting is the most important part of the game. It also helps when you're putting on perfect greens like the ones we saw today. These greens might go down as one of my all-time favorites. The smoothness and speed just fit my eye and I felt like I could see the line all day.

I don't know if I've ever felt more comfortable on a course I've never seen before than this one. In my opinion, it's a really good layout. The condition of the course is perfect and the greens couldn't be any better. With all that said, I feel good going into tomorrow's round. Now that I know where to go on every hole, I should be able to clean up a few of the mistakes I made today and shoot an ever better score tomorrow. My tee time is 10:10 off #1.