My Game was Still Sick in Round 2

Physically, I feel fantastic. Whatever caused me to be sick most of the night before the first round is completely out of my system, and I am feeling 100%. Unfortunately, that did little to behoove my golf game today in Round 2. I hit the ball very poorly today with my irons, and despite a lot of good work around the greens, I simply put too much pressure on my short game and wasn't able to hole the necessary putts to hold on to a decent round. I bogeyed four holes on my closing nine today and finished with a very disappointing round-2 score of 75. My two-day total of 149 will miss the cut by three shots, and leave me working on my game instead of competing for a win the next two days.

Today's round was pretty bad. I chipped in for birdie on my second hole (the 11th) and converted an easy up-and-down for birdie on the par-5 12th to go to two under par through three holes. After that, however, I began to struggle. Three times today I missed the green from inside of 130 yards and made bogies on all three occasions. That is terrible. I was quite dreadful today with my longer iron shots as well. I missed a couple of greens by a pretty wide margin and just couldn't muster the short game magic to save it. I am actually very pleased with my chipping and pitching, but I left myself too many tricky shots today and didn't putt the ball very well either. I do feel like I'm putting the ball well, I just didn't get many to go in today in that 5-10 foot range. My ball-striking with the irons was the real culprit of my struggles, and that will be something I spend some quality time practicing in the coming days before the next event begins in El Jadida on Saturday.

My game was very disappointing today. I really expected that I would play well given how well I felt and how good my game has felt all year thus far. I am not discouraged, though. I know that this game deals out some hard times. I always hope that I will never have to deal with struggles and missed cuts anymore, but I know that hard times and some frustration are a guarantee in the game of golf. I am ready to take this temporary setback in stride and go get 'em next week in El Jadida. I'm still encouraged by the way my game has felt all year, and I will go find that lovin' feeling again!

The two tournament weeks that I have had so far this year have definitely not been great weeks toward achieving my process goals. This week in Morocco was a challenge because the available practice facilities somewhat hindered the types of practice that I could do, but I need to be more creative and find ways to accomplish my goals. Today is Monday, and I will start checking off some of my goals for this week tomorrow. I know that my wedge play and putting need to continue to improve, and I will also spend some time working on my ball-striking. My rhythm was a little bit off on the course this week, so I am just going to think about that while I practice in the coming days. My process goals for tournament weeks are very realistic, and I plan to start making strides towards achieving them this week in Morocco. I know that working towards my process goals every week will get me to the outcome goals that I want.

My game may have been awful today, but I am still doing great. I'm healthy and I'm motivated. I can't wait to go play and practice tomorrow so that I can get my game whipped back into shape. I only have to wait four more days before it's time to compete again, and you can bet that I'll be ready. Between now and then I'm going to enjoy being in Morocco and enjoy the challenge of overcoming the recent struggles that have entered into my game. Life is good, and I'm still smiling!

By the way, I'm sorry that this update is "all golf" as well. I do have some info and a few cool pictures to share that will tell you more about my experience here in Morocco. I'm excited to share that kind of stuff with you, too, and I promise that I will soon. It's been a pain in the butt because internet is very rare here, it seems. There is no internet in my fifth floor hotel room, so I can only use it in the lobby, and even there it is very sparse. In any event, that is a poor excuse. I will share more from Morocco in the coming days with short updates about the improving status of my game and more about the cool experience I am having in Africa. Thank you for following, and come back soon for more!