I am very happy with my decision to drive home after my poor round in last week's Monday Qualifier in Valdosta, GA. Despite severe storms that ravaged much of the southeastern United States and did not spare my area, either, I had a great week and feel energized and confident heading out on the road this coming week. I will leave tomorrow (Sunday) morning for Athens, GA, and another Nationwide Tour Monday Qualifier. I feel great about the work I have done on my game this week and am confident that I will have a great week next week.
In the past week, I feel like I have experienced a little bit of everything. My hometown course, Dandridge Golf Club, where I learned to play and still love to practice is in the middle of the dreadful process of aerifying the greens, so when early-week weather threats drove me to stay close to home, I wasn't very motivated to spend much time practicing my putting. I did, however, take advantage of "my wedge range" on the sod nursery at Dandridge GC and spent hours this week honing my wedge play. Then, on Wednesday evening, the storms hit home. Many in my area suffered wind damage to their houses and property while almost all had hail damage. It was a scary ordeal to be in the middle of it, but my family and all our possessions are fine. So, with a mess all around, I tried to resume work as usual on Thursday, and was able to do so for the most part but didn't have my most productive day of practice. I made up for that on Friday, however. On Friday, I spent the day at Holston Hills Country Club in Knoxville and had some of my most productive practice I can remember. I hit balls for a while and then spent roughly four hours hitting wedges and practicing around the chipping green. After that, I had the chance to go play with a friend of mine named Braxton Hunter who also plays on the mini-tours. We teed it up at 4:30, so I thought we would just play nine holes, but with the days getting longer, we played all 18 and had a great match. I had to make nine birdies to hold him off, but I got the better of my friend yesterday. It was a tight match though, and the competition felt great! Today I just did some touch-up work with Bobbo in a short practice session at Millstone Golf Club before I hammered out a few of my putting drills and called it a day. It was a crazy week with a little bit of everything, but in terms of my golf game, I am feeling great!
Another great thing about being home is that it allowed me to get back into a comfortable fitness routine. For the first since I struggled with some back pain a few weeks ago, I was able to have full-length workouts and runs this week. I am definitely a little bit out of shape compared to where I was a month ago, but I still feel great and know that my conditioning will come right back. I am still doing my back stretches and exercises each day, and I feel very confident that I can keep any future flare-ups at bay. Physically I feel very good right now, and I know that that is a piece of the formula that helps me be successful.
One thing from the past three weeks that I am disappointed with is my work towards my process goals. I have set very realistic goals for myself on both tournament and non-tournament weeks, and for a variety of different reasons I have come up short of accomplishing all of my goals the past few weeks. I was "re-habbing" my back a little bit in there, and I did have a stretch where I was in the heat of a couple good tournaments two weeks in a row, but my goals are very realistic and attainable, and I believe that staying dedicated to my process goals will allow me to achieve all of my outcome goals for the year. I have a spreadsheet on which I mark my progress towards my process goals, and I am going to be filling it in completely in the coming weeks!
I do feel great right now, though. I'm happy, healthy, and feeling good about my game. I have another shot at a Monday Qualifier this week, and I'm ready to make my first Nationwide Tour start of the year. If I happen to come up short in the Qualifier, I do have an Egolf Event in Greensboro, North Carolina, that I will be playing instead, so one way or the other, I'm going to win a golf tournament next week! I feel ready to go, and I truly believe I'm close to playing great. Keep it right here for some exciting news soon!
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