Rust-Oleum (Cleveland) Championship Round 1

When my Pro-Am was rained out after nine holes on Wednesday morning, I did not feel well-prepared at all for this week's Web.com Tour event. I didn't arrive in Cleveland until Tuesday evening because of U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying on Monday, so I was counting on the Pro-Am to be my practice round. I did not get to play the back-nine, and what's worse is I felt tired and out of sync on the nine holes that I did play. It had me feeling pretty crummy about things as I watched it rain and fretted about not being able to practice or see the back-nine of the course, so I did something out of character for me. I went back to the hotel, and I took a nap. Wow! What a difference that made! I returned to the course late Wednesday afternoon, walked the back-nine (I wasn't allowed to play, but I could at least see the holes), and had a power hour practice session. Then, I woke up even earlier than usual for my 7:10 a.m. first-round tee time and snuck in a mini-practice session during my warm-up. By the time I walked to the tenth tee just a few minutes after 7:00 a.m., I felt well-prepared and was pumped to get started!

Things actually didn't look promising after my opening tee shot, which I pull-hooked well left of the fairway into some thick trees, but I still knew I would play well. I pitched the ball back out to the fairway, got up and down from 93 yards to save par, and was off and running. I went on to hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation and post a bogey-free opening round of 64 (-7). Over the final ten holes of my round, I hit every fairway and every green. It was very solid, and it felt great. 

It is really nice to see that my hard work carries over and easily trumps one morning of feeling a little bit out of whack. I have continued to follow my Process Goals despite the busyness of the past few weeks, and the value of that showed in how quickly I was able to get things feeling good again after a bad morning on Wednesday. I'm going to continue to follow my plan, and I know that I'll keep moving in a great direction. 

My game is good, and I know that I can deliver the kind of performance that I gave in round one over the next three days as well. It all comes down to being prepared, having a smart plan on every shot, and trusting it one shot at a time. Good things are coming. Keep it here for more. Thank you for following!