Today's Score: 80
For the first time in my golfing career, I began a tournament hitting my tee shot out-of-bounds on the first two holes of the day. The first hole was a nervous, timid swing with a driver that finished just a couple inches OB, and the second hole was a similar swing except this time a hard duck hook left ended up well out-of-bounds. I did manage to save bogey on #2 so after two holes I was +3 over par. I was able to steady to the ship for a minute after making three solid pars in a row, but on the 6th hole, I again found the out-of-bounds off the tee for the third time in six holes. Again, my ball was no more than an inch from being in bounds. +5 over thru 6. I hit another poor tee shot on the par-3 7th which left a near impossible up-and-down and lead to another bogey. On #8, I hit what I thought was a good second shot right at the flag only to come up short of the green in the bunker, on the downslope and up against the back lip. Double-bogey and now I'm +8 thru 8 holes. Finally, on #9, I hit two pretty good shots to get on the front of the green in two, but basically 4-putted from 70ft and made another double-bogey to finish the front nine in +10 over (46). Easily, the worst nine holes I've played in God knows how long. You can imagine how hard it was to get fired up for the back.
Well, the 10th hole is a short par-5 and after hitting a great 3-iron for my second into the green, I was left with 5ft for eagle. Not wanting to get too aggressive, I tapped in for birdie... :) .....I still can't believe I left that putt short. I made two more birdies on #13 and #15 to go -3 under on the back nine as if the front nine never happened and I was just out there playing like I have been. The 16th hole is a long par-5 into the wind and I was able to get a good look for another birdie from about 6ft. Unable to convert there, I remained -3 under. The 17th is 180 yard par-3 over water, and another solid tee shot left me 10ft passed the cup for birdie. I made a poor stroke there and missed left all the way. The 18th hole is a narrow par-4 with water right and OB left playing straight downwind. My second shot jumped as soon as I hit it and finished all the way in the back of the green. Since the pin was up front, I had another 60 footer for birdie. This time I hit a good first putt and left a 3ft tap in for par......except I missed it and made bogey to finish -2 under for the back nine and 12 strokes lower than what I shot on the front.
As I teed off #10, I realized what I had been doing differently in my swing than what I've been doing this past month. It was simply a timing issue on my downswing that made all the difference in the world. Over these last couple of days, I had been noticing some shots that I wasn't hitting before but for the majority of my practice sessions things were pretty much normal. During the practice round, however, my swing was a little more off than usual and then for the front nine yesterday everything just fell apart. And with the narrowness of the course and out-of-bounds left and right, it just made the issues I was having that much worse.
I feel better about today's round knowing what I was doing wrong, and hopefully I will be able to just pick up where I left off. Fortunately, the scores are higher this week due to the course and weather conditions so there is still an outside chance of making the cut. I'll need about a -4 under round today which now I know is out there cause I could of shot that on the back nine alone yesterday. The tee times for today have already been postponed due to the frost this morning, so I begin my day at 1:20 off #10. Here goes nothing!
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