Golf Channel Amateur Tour - Win #3

The past few tournaments that I have played in I have felt really good about my game, but this time the only thing I knew I could count on was my short game and my putting. The country club I practice at is going through a huge remodeling project and because of this the driving range is only open on the weekend. So I am only able to practice my putting during the week and only play when someone asks me to join them for a quick nine holes.

(For those of you who missed the story here is the short version. Our club like many clubs has a rule that once children of members turn 25 they are no longer allowed to be a member and must be accompanied at all times on the club grounds and must pay to play. I turned 25 back in March and after a few months past the club notified my parents of the rules and whenever I wanted to play I would have to pay the guest fee. Obviously my parents and I didn’t take this well especially the part where I had to be accompanied at all times at the club. So, thankfully the board approved that family members after the age of 25 can use the practice facilities as much as they want as long as they continue to take lessons.)

Since the driving range is closed during the week my full swing has suffered a great deal, which is really frustrating. When my parents were on vacation I heavily relied on a few people to play with during the week which allowed me to keep my swing fresh for my tournaments. My parents are now back from vacation, but my dad has a back problem so he can’t play as much and my mom hasn’t been feeling well so she doesn’t want to go out and play. I played two times leading up to the tournament and my swing just wasn’t clicking. My tendency is to sway my hips and get ahead of the ball which is what I am doing. Going into the tournament I knew that my swing wasn’t feeling great and I would just have to grind through the day and just do the best I could. I decided to stick with my 5 wood for the entire day because I knew that even if I had a bad swing it wouldn’t get me into too much trouble. I ended the day with 7 pars which was awesome, but I ended up with too many mistakes and finished my round with a 94. Considering I wasn’t comfortable with my swing and relied heavily on my short game and putter I am pretty happy with that score. I ended up winning so I guess I can’t complain too much.

Since this is my third win on tour I qualified for the National Championship which takes place in La Quinta, CA this year. I am really excited and I hope I get to play in team play championship as well.

The biggest thing that I can take away from this tournament is that because of all the practice I have been doing on my putting I felt very comfortable with it and even though the greens were slow I was able to make the adjustment and make a lot of putts and not get too frustrated mentally with my long game. I will have to find another way to practice leading up to the National Championship which takes place in September. I know I have plenty of time to get ready, but there is more than just my golf game that needs to get ready. Last year when I played in the National Championship it was my first multiple day tournament and mentally I put a lot of pressure on myself and my body was also very tired after the third day and I just couldn’t get anything going. Hopefully I can fix that problem this year and maybe bring home a trophy! That would be nice....